


>^^ ^^. 



,^^^ 



Q. "/ 









,r" 



^<5. ^^ 



''<> 









.V 



-^.< 

.s^-^ 
























K ft 


















; ^-^ 



'^mO^ 



,P9. 



<i^ 9.. 






^^ ='^^^-n%# -i^-^^^ -M|'"%< 



<^ 



A* 



<. 



c?\^r.:''' ^ 






<> 









.W 












^ V? ',) *, "-vtf* <; 1- <3 t, » "-V6 ^ 

- ^ 






.0^ 
















0, '':7!:^-*/' . 9j, 







'^^0^ 



^°^^iy'«% ^^^^1:^'^% -^^^^^"'^^ '^^ 









i*^-.- 



.^\^' 



s?:^ 9^. 



(-> 






O- 



yulius Ccesar did write a Collection of Apothegms, as appears 
in an Epistle of Cicero ; I need say no more of the worth of a 
writing of that nature. It is a pity his book is lost; for I imagine 
they were collected with judgment and choice; whereas that of 
Plutarch and Stobceus, and tmich more the modern ones, draw 
much of the dregs. Certainly they are of excellent use. They are 
MUCRONES VERBORUM, POINTED SPEECHES. Cicero p7-ettily calls 
them SALINAS, SALTPITS, that you may extract salt out of and 
sprinkle it 7uhere you will. They serve to be interlaced in con- 
tinued speech. They serve to be recited upon occasio7i, of themselves. 
They serve, if you take out the kernel of thetn and make them your 

own. 

Sir Francis Bacon. 



i 



SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS 

^ugjjestibe Selections, 



WITH BRIEF COLLATERAL READINGS AND 
SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES. 



' Wherever the bright sun of Heaven shall shine, 
His honor and the greatness of his name 
Shall be." 



EDITED BY 

ARTHUR OILMAN, M.A., 

EDITOR OF THE POETICAL WORKS OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 



■\ j/o.JhloJJC ' 



NEW YORK: 

DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY. 

1880. 



r)^7f-^ 



J 

7r 






Copyright, 1879, 
By Dodd, Mead, and Company. 



University Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



Z7C 



TO 

fHg iFatfjcr, 



WHOSE LOVING STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE AND GENERAL LITERATURE, 

DURING MANY YEARS OF BUSINESS LIFE, 

HAS BEEN 

A LITERARY STIMULUS AND AN INSPIRATION TO HIS CHILDREN, 

AND REMAINS IN ITS UNPUBLISHED RECORDS 

A PRECIOUS INHERITANCE FOR HIS 

children's CHILDREN. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



" I ^HE reader of this little volume will not expect 
-^ to find within its modest limits a complete 
presentation of the ethical principles involved in the 
writings of the great Dramatist. 

It was not the intention of Shakespeare in his 
literary work to elaborate a system of morals, nor 
to give his hearers maxims for their guidance in 
life; though, by making true presentations of the 
workings of the human heart and of the actions of 
men in society, he in a measure accomplished both 
ends. 

Though the selections here offered are the re- 
sult of original study, most of them are familiar to 
intelligent readers and probably they all will seem 
like memories of golden thoughts that have been 
but temporarily lost. Their value is not in them- 
selves alone, for each one shines with a glory reflected 



VIU ADVERTISEMENT. 

from the others of the group in which it appears, 
while the readings from other masters of thought 
show the brotherhood of great minds, and still fur- 
ther illustrate the themes, at the same time that 
they give emphasis to the wealth of the Dramatist's 
genius. 

It was Coleridge who said, " I greatly dislike beau- 
ties and selections in general, but as proof of his 
unrivalled excellence I should like to try Shakespeare 
by this criterion." The same acute critic says in 
another place, " Let the morality of Shakespeare be 
contrasted with that of the writers of his own or the 
succeeding age, or of those of the present day who 
boast their superiority in this respect. No one can 
dispute that the result of such comparison is alto- 
gether in favor of Shakespeare." 

The Right Reverend Charles Wordsworth, in his 
work on Shakespeare's knowledge and use of the 
Bible, ventures to use the following language : 
" Take the entire range of English literature ; put 
together our best authors who have written upon 
subjects not professedly religious or theological, and 
we shall not find, I believe, in all united, so much 
evidence of the Bible having been read and used 
as we have found in Shakespeare alone." A few, 



ADVERTISEMENT. ix 

among the very large number of Scriptural texts 
which are suggested by the Dramatist's expressions, 
are given in the notes. Many more, which it has 
not been thought necessary to quote, will occur to 
the reader. 

The following pages will enable the reader to form 
some opinion upon these subjects, but their greatest 
value will be found in the truths they convey and the 
practical wisdom they express. While they are not 
the whole, they are a part of Shakespeare's Morals. 

Cambridge, September, 1879. 

The quotations from Sophocles are from the version of the Rev. 
Dr. Plumptre. For Shakespeare, resort has been had to the text of 
Messrs. Clark and Wright (found in the Globe edition), though in a 
few instances the reading of Mr. Dyce has been preferred. Extracts 
from Chaucer are from the edition of the editor. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

God's Providence c) 

The Atonement 13 

God's Choice of Weak Means 15 

'^-Tersonal Responsibility to God 16 

Nature and Grace 20 

Hereditary Sin 22 

Blindness of Mind produced by Sin ,24 

God our Deliverer 25 

The Just and Unjust contrasted 27 

Character not to be judged by Appearances . . 28 

Unrighteous Judges 30 

.xMoral Responsibility of Rulers 32 

Lament over England, degraded by a Wicked 

Ruler 35 

•JJhe Just Way of Political Success 37 

The Power of Innocence and Love 40 

Love's Beginnings 46 

Man and Woman the Complement of each other . 53 



Xll TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The True Wife 55 

Man the Head of the Woman 63 

The Necessity of Perseverance 65 

The Power of Imagination 67 

The Power of Wisdom 69 

Self-Knowledge 72 

The Duty of showing Mercy 75 

Forgiveness of Injuries 78 

Forecast and Watchfulness 80 

The Beneficent Use of Talents and Wealth . . 83 

j^he Virtue of Order and Degree 86 

Promptness in Action 90 

^ The Folly of Rashness 93 

Value of Recreation 95 

The Curse of Avarice 97 

The Peril of Wicked Association 10 1 

The Peril of Opportunity 105 

_^elf-Indulgence 108 

A Sensual Heaven, an Actual Hell no 

Perversion of the Truth 112 

Hypocrisy 113 

The Folly of anticipating Trouble 117 

Judging Others 123 

The Use of the Tongue 124 

'Self-Praise . .^^ 127 

Falsity in the Garb of Truth 128 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. Xlll 

PACE 

Inconstancy of Worldly Friendships 130 

Constant Friendship 135 

Calumny and Detraction 139 

Feigned Prayer 142 

Prayer 145 

Despairing Sorrow 14S 

Hungering for Spiritual Food 154 

Repentance 156 

Conversion > 15S 

Beauty and Strength Transitory 160 

The Real Worth of Beauty 162 

The Instability of Earthly Happiness .... 164 

The Vanity of Worldly Glory 166 

The Benefits of Adversity 169 

„^dversity a Test of Character 174 

Sympathy with Mourners 176 

Resignation under Bereavements 177 

Ministering Spirits 180 

Fear of Death terrible to the Wicked . . . 181 

Despair in the Hour of Death 183 

Remorse 186 

Rest Denied the Guilty Conscience 191 

Encouragements to Hope 193 

"^The Guilt and Folly of Suicide 195 

Condemnation of Duelling 198 

Christian Assurance in the Hour of Death . . 200 



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Final Dissolution of the World 202 

Life Worthless without the Hope of Immortality 203 

Christian Hope 208 

Heavenly Harmony in Immortal Souls .... 210 

Sorrow for a misspent Life 213 

Humility and Contrition in View of Death . . 2x5 

Last Words 217 

Extract from Shakespeare's Will 218 

Shakespeare the Chief of all Poets 219 



List of Extracts from Shakespeare 241 

List of Scriptural Quotations 249 

Index of Subjects 251 



SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 



In the poorest cottage are Books ; is one BOOK, wherein for several 
thousands of years the spirit of man has fouttd light and nourishment, 
and an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest in him. ; wherein 
still, to this day, for those that will look well, the Mystery of Existence 
reflects itself 

This is zvhat some one names " The grand sacred Epos, or Bible of 
World-History j infinite in meaning as the Divine Mind it emblems ; 
wherein he is wise that can read here a line and there a line." — 
Thomas Carlyle. 

Shakespeare had penetrated into innumerable things ; far into Nature 
tuith her divine splendors and infernal terrors, her Ariel melodies and 
mystical mandragora moans ; far into 7nan^s workings with Nature, 
into matis art and artifice. Shakespeare kneiv innumc7-able things ; 
what men are and what the world is, and how and what men aim at 
there. — Thomas Carlyle. 

Sophocles also sang, and showed in grand dramatic rhythm and 
melody, *not a fable, but a fact, the best he could interpret it, io the judg- 
ments of Eternal Destiny tipon the erring sons of men. 

In the tragedies of Sophocles there is a most deep-toned recognition 
of the eternal justice of Heaven, and the unfaili^ig ptmishment of crime 
against the Laws of God. — Thomas Carlyle. 

To Sophocles, the greatest dramatic poet of Greece, has been assigned 
a higher place in the history of Greek literature than to Homer himself. 
His work was to ttirn the mythology of Homer '■'■into an instrument 
of moral education, and to lead men upzvards to the eternal laws of 
God and the thought of his righteozcs order.'''' — E. H. Plumptre, in 
" The Life and Writittgs of Sophocles.''^ 

No poet comes near Shakespeare ifi the number of his bosom lines, — 
of lines that we may cherish in our bosoms, and that seem almost as 
if they had grown there, — of lines that, like bosom friends, are ever at 
hand to comfort, counsel, and gladden us under all the vicissitudes of 
life, — of lines that, according to Bacon's expression, ^'^ come home to our 
business and bosoms^'' and open the door for us to look in, and to see 
what is nestling and brooding there. — Guesses at Truth. 

We ought to make collections of the thoughts of Shakespeare ; they 
may be cited on every occasion and under every form, and no man who 
has a tincture of letters can open his works without finding there a 
thousand things which he ought not to forget. — Abel FRANCOIS 
ViLLEMAIN, quoted by Price. 

Shakespeare is an author of all others calculated to make his readers 
better as well as wiser. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 



f 



SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 



(ID^on'is i^rotjiDence- 



Enviable indeed was the faith of the world's young day ; sad that 
it should ever have been intercepted by the frigid, murky phantasm of 
law ; and blessed will it be for man when his maturity shall have grown 
into a second childhood, with the Father'' s arms again around him, and, 
in his ripest philosophy, lazu shall yield place to the allpresent God! 

A. P. Peabody, D.D. 

A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in 
philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion : for, while the ?nind 
of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it fnay sometimes rest in 
them and go no farther ; but, when it beholdeth the chain of them confed- 
erate and linked together, it must needs fly to providence and deity. 

Sir Francis Bacon, Essay on Atheism. 

THERE 'S a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.^ 
If it be now, 'tis not to come ; if it be not to come, 
it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come : the readi- 
ness is all. Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 230. 

1 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not 
fall on the ground without your father. — Matt. x. 29. 



lo Shakespeare's morals. 

The words of Heaven j on whom it will, it will ; 
On whom it will not, so ; yet still 'tis just.^ 

Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 126. 

Our wills and fates do so contrary run 
That our devices still are overthrown j 
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. 

Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 221. 

Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 

When our deep plots do pall : and that should teach us . 

There 's a divinity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will." Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2, 1.8. 

But since correction lieth in those hands 
Which made the fault that we cannot correct. 
Put we our quarrel to the will of Heaven ; 
Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, 
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads. 

Kmg Richard II., Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 4. 

In Pericles, his queen and daughter, seen, 
Although assail'd with fortune fierce and keen, 
Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast. 
Led on by Heaven, and crown'd with joy at last. 

Pericles, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 86. 

1 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and 
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. — Rom. i.x. 15. 

2 The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the 
Lord. — Prov. xvi. 23. 



god's providence. • II 

Virtuous and holy ; chosen from above, 
By inspiration of celestial grace. 

First Part King Henry VI., Act v. Sc. 4, 1. 39. 

King Richard II. carried Captive to London in the 
Train of Bolingbroke, a.d. 1399. 

Scene, The Duke of York's palace. 

Enter York and his Duchess. 

Duch. My lord, you told me you would teU the rest, 
When weeping made you break the story off, 
Of our two cousins coming into London, 

York. Where did I leave ? 

Duch. At that sad stop, my lord, 

Where rude, misgovern'd hands from windows' tops 
Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head. 

York. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke, 
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed 
Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know. 
With slow but stately pace kept on his course, 
Whilst all tongues cried, ' God save thee, Bolingbroke ! ' 
You would have thought the very windows spake, 
So many greedy looks of young and old 
Through casements darted their desiring eyes 
Upon his visage, and that all the walls 
With painted imagery had said at once, 
' Jesu preserve thee ! welcome, Bolingbroke ! ' 
Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning. 
Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck. 



12 Shakespeare's morals. 

Bespake them thus : ' I thank you, countrymen : ' 
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along. 

Duch. Alack, poor Richard ! where rode he the whilst? 

York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, 
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, 
Are idly bent on him that enters next. 
Thinking his prattle to be tedious, — 
Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes 
Did scowl on gentle Richard ; no man cried, ' God save 

him!' 
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home ; 
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head, 
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off. 
His face still combating with tears and smiles, 
The badges of his grief and patience. 
That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel' d 
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted 
And barbarism itself have pitied him. 
But Heaven hath a hand in these events,^ 
To whose high will we bound our calm contents. 
To Bolingbroke are we swom subjects now. 
Whose state and honor I for aye allow. 

King Richard II., Act v. Sc. 2. 

1 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from 
the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up 
another. — Psalm bcxv. 6, 7. 



€]^e Atonement ♦ 



One sottl working in the strength of love 
Is mightier than ten thousand to atone. 

Sophocles, (Edipus at Colonos, 1. 498. 

The great Swiss historian, John Von Miiller, gives the result of his 
life-long labors, extracted, he says, from seventeen hundred and thirty- 
three authors, in seventeen thousand folio pages, in this striking cotifes- 
sion, — " Christ is the key to the history of the world. Not only does all 
harmonize with the mission of Christ ; all is subordinated to it. When 
I saw this," he adds, " it was to me as wonderful and surprising as the light 
which Paid saw ott his way to Damascus, the fulfilment of all hopes, the 
completiott of all philosophy, the key to all the apparent contradictions in 
the physical and moral 'world ; here is life and immortality. I marvel 
not at miracles ; a far greater miracle has been reserved for our times, 
the spectacle of the connection of all human events in the establishment 
and preservation of the doctrifie of Christ." 

Prof. Henry B. Smith, Faith and Philosophy. 

Alas, alas ! 
Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once ; ^ 
And He that might the vantage best have took 
Found out the remedy.^ How would you be, 
If He, which is the top of judgment, should 

1 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. — Rom. iii. 23. 

2 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. — 
Jo/m iii. 16. 



14 Shakespeare's morals. 

But judge you as you are ! ^ O, think on that ; 
And mercy then will breathe within your lips, 
Like man new made,^ 

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1, 72. 

As surely as my soul intends to live 

With that dread King that took our state upon him 

To free us from his father's wrathful curse. 

Seco7id Part King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 1 53. 

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ, 
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross 
We are impressed and engaged to fight. 
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy ; 
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb 
To chase these pagans in those holy fields 
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet 
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd 
For our advantage on the bitter cross. 

First Part King Henry IV., Act i. Sc. I, 1. 19. 

1 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? — 
Psalm cxxx. 3. 

2 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteous- 
ness and true holiness. — Eph. iv. 24. 



(ID>oD'0 Cl^oice of meafe flipeangi. 



/ know that God is ever such as this. 

Darkly disclosing counsels to the wise ; 

But to the simple, speaking fewest words. 

Plain teacher found. Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 707. 

HE that of greatest works, is finisher 
Oft does them by the weakest minister : ^ 
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown, 
When judges have been babes ; great floods have flown 
From simple sources/ and great seas have dried 
When miracles have by the greatest been denied. 
Oft expectation fails and most oft there 
Where most it promises, and oft it hits 
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits. 

It is not so with Him that all things knows 
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows ; 
But most it is presumption in us when 
The help of heaven we count the act of men. 

All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 139. 

1 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the 
wise ; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the 
things that are mighty ; . . . that no flesh should glory in his presence. — 
I Cor. i. 27. 

2 Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb ; and thou 
shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may 
drink. — Ex. xvii. 6. 



pzt^onal M^pomibiliti^ to (5oD. 



A few years before his death, Daniel Webster having a large party 
of friends dining with him at Alarshfield, was called on by one of the 
party as th'ey became seated at the table to specify what one thing he had 
met with in his life which had done most for him, or had contributed 
most to the success of his personal history. After a tnoment he replied ; 
" 7'he most frnitftl and elevating influence I have ever seemed to meet 
with has been my imp7'ession of obligation to God." 

Horace Bushnell, D.D., Obligation to Laiu our Highest Privilege. 

Disputed Succession to the British Crown. 

King Philip (J>ointi?ig to Arthur) . Look here upon thy 
brother Geffrey's face ; 
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his : 
This little abstract doth contain that large 
Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time 
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume. 
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born. 
And this his son ; England was Geffrey's right, 
And this is Geffrey's : in the name of God 
How comes it then that thou art call'd a king, 
When living blood doth in these temples beat. 
Which owe the crown that thou o'ermasterest ? 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. 1 7 

King yohn. From whom hast thou this great commission, 
France, 
To draw my answer from thy articles ? 

King Philip. From that supernal judge, that stirs good 
thoughts 
In any breast of strong authority, 
To look into the blots and stains of right : 
That judge hath made me guardian to this boy : 
Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong, 
And by whose help I mean to chastise it. 

King John, Act ii. Sc. i, I. 99. 

The Murder of Clarence. , 

Clarence. Are you call'd forth from out a world of men 
To slay the innocent ? What is my offence ? 
Where are the evidence that do accuse me? 
What lawful quest have given their verdict up 
Unto the frowning judge ? or who pronounced 
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death? 
Before I be convict by course of law, 
To threaten me with death is most unlawful. 
I charge you, as you hope to have redemption 
By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins. 
That you depart and lay no hands on me : 
The deed you undertake is damnable. 

First Murd. What we will do, we do upon command. 

Sec. Murd. And he that hath commanded is the king. 



1 8 Shakespeare's morals. 

Clarence. Erroneous vassal ! the great King of kings 
Hath in the tables of his law commanded 
That thou shalt do no murder : and wilt thou, then, 
Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's ? 
Take heed ; for he holds vengeance in his hands, 
To hurl upon their heads that break his law. 

First Murd. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law on 
us, 
When thou hast broke it in so dear degree ? 

Clarence. If God will be revenged for this deed, 
O, know you yet, he doth it publicly : 
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm ; 
He needs no indirect nor lawless course 
To cut off those that have offended him. . . . 

Sec. Miird. Make peace with God, for you must die, my 

lord. 
Clarence. Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul, 
To counsel me to make my peace with God, 
And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind, 
That thou wilt war with God, by murdering me ? . . . 
Sec. Miird. Wliat shall we do ? 
Clarejice. Relent and save your souls. . . . 
Sec. Murd. {After the murder.) 
A bloody deed and desperately dispatch'd ! 
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands 
Of this most grievous guilty murder done ! 

King Richard III., Act i. Sc. 4, 1. 186. 



PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. 1 9 

Show US the hand of God 
That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship ; 
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone 
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre, 
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp. 

King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 77. 



jijatute ann d^race. 



There is not a single virtue that can adorn our characters, nor one 
active quality of the mind, nor one noble feeling of the heart that can tirge 
tis on towards heaven, but must derive its eficiency and its worth from 
that mixture of evil with which God has attempered the condition of the 
■world. Thomas House Taylor, D.D. 

By giving the glory of good actions to man, instead of to God, we 
weaken the power of example. If such or such a grace be the growth of 
such or such a character, our character, which is different, may be quite 
finable to attaiii to it. But if it be God's work in the soul, then on us 
too may he vouchsafe to bestow the sarne gift as on our neighbor. 

Guesses at Truth. 

OMICKLE is the powerful grace that lies 
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities : 
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live 
But to the earth some special good doth give, 
Nor ought so good but strain'd from that fair use 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse : 
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ; 
And vice sometimes by action dignified. 
Within the infant rind of this small flower 
Poison hath residence and medicine power : 



NATURE AND GRACE. 21 

For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part ; 

Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 

Two such opposed kings encamp them still 

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will ; ^ 

And where the worser is predominant. 

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. 

Romeo attd yuliet, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 1 5. 

All offences, my lord, come from the heart.^ 

King Henry V., Act iv. Sc. 8, 1. 48. 

The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace, 

For there it revels ; and when that decays, 

The guilty rebel for remission prays. L^urcce, 1. 712. 

1 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh : 
and these are contrary the one to the other. — Gal. v. 17, 

2 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adul- 
teries, fornications, murders. — Mark vii. 21. 



l$zttUtaxv ^in. 



Searching out all things, thou in most men^s acts 

Wilt Jind but baseness. Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 732. 

The learned pate 
Ducks to the golden fool : all is oblique ; 
There 's nothing level in our cursed natures, 
But direct villany. Timon of Athens, Act. iv. Sc. 3, 1. 17. 

Every man with his affects is bom, 

Not by might master'd but by special grace : 

Love's Labour 'j- Lost, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 152. 

The Innocence of Childhood. 

Polixines. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the • 
sun, 
And bleat the one at the other : what we changed 
Was innocence for innocence \ we knew not 
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd 
That any did. Had we pursued that life. 



HEREDITARY SIN. 23 

And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd 
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven 
Boldly ' not guilty ; ' the imposition clear'd 
Hereditary ours. 

Hermione. By this we gather 

You have tripp'd since. 

Pol. O my most sacred lady ! 

Temptations have since then been born to 's. 

Tlie Winter's Tale, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 67. 



OBKntineis^ of fll^inti pronuceu hv ^in. 



They that fare ill becotne not only deaf, 

But even though they gaze, they see 7iot clear 

What lies before thein^ .... Folly proves itself 

Of wickedness true sister. Sophocles, Frag?nents, 1. 663. 

WHEN we in our viciousness grow hard — 
O misery on 't ! — the wise gods seel our eyes ; 
In our own filth drop our clear judgments ; make us 
Adore our errors ; laugh at 's, while we strut 
To our confusion.^ Antony ajid Cleopatra, Act iii. Sc. 13, 1. in. 

I see men's judgments are 
A parcel of their fortunes ; and things outward 
Do draw the inward qualities after them, 
To suffer all alike. Aiitony and Cleopatra, Act iii. Sc. 13, 1. 31. 

Like one 
Who having into truth, by telling of it, 
Made such a sinner of his memory, 
To credit his own lie. The Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 99. 

1 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost : in whom the god 
of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. — 2 Cor. iv. 3. 

2 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof : 
I also will laugh at your calamity ; I will mock when your fear cometh. — 
Prov. i. 2;. 



dD^oD:, out j^zliUtzt. 



The victories of batailles that been in this world lyeti nat in greet 
nombre or multitude of the peple, ne in the vertu [valor] of man, but it 
lith in the wyl and in the hand of our e Lord God Almyghty. 

Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1. 7269. 

Ay me, how many perils doe enfold 

The righteous man to make him daily fall. 

Were not that heavenly grace doth him uphold, 

And stedfast truth acquite him out at all. 

Her love is firm, her care continuall. 

So oft as he, through his oion foolish pride 

Or weakness, is to siftfull bands made thrall. 

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, Book i., canto 8. 

If it be needful that we add testimonies concerning one God, ei'en 
from the dramatists, hear even Sophocles speaking thus : — 

There is one God, in truth there is but one. 
Who made the heavens and the broad earth beneath. 
The glancing waves of ocean and the winds. 
But many of us mortals err in heart. 
And set up for a solace in our woes 
Images of the gods in stone and wood. 
Or figures carved in brass or ivory. 
And, furnishing for these our handiworks. 
Both sacrifice and rite magnificent. 
We think that thus we do a pious work. 
Justin Martyr, Hortatory Address to the Greeks, Chap, xviii. 



26 Shakespeare's morals. 

Henry V. after the Victory of Agincourt. 

King Henry. O God, thy arm was here ; 
And not to us, but to thy arm alone,^ 
Ascribe we all ! When, without stratagem, 
But in plain shock and even play of battle, 
Was ever known so great and little loss 
On one part and on the other ? Take it, God, 
For it is none but thine ! 

Exeter. 'T is wonderful ! 

K. Hen. Come, go we in procession to the village : 
And be it death proclaimed through our host 
To boast of this or take that praise from God 
Which is his only. King Henry v., Act iv. Sc. 8, 1. III. 

Even now 
You may imagine him upon Blackheath ; 
Where that his lords desire him to have borne 
His bruised helmet and his bended sword 
Before him through the city : he forbids it. 
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride ; 
Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent. 
Quite from himself to God. 

King Henry V., Act v. Prol. 1. 15. 

1 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did 
their own arm save them : but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the Hght 
of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them. — Psalm xliv. 3. 



Ci^e %mt ann dinimt contra^ten. 



JVb^ easy is it to resist the Just. 

A righteous tongue has with it mightiest strength. 

Be not afraid : speak thoii the truth, and then 

Thou shalt not fail y Sophocles, Fragments, 99, 101, 513. 

WHAT stronger breastplate than a heart untainted ! 
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, 
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 232. 

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind ; 
The thief doth fear each bush an officer. 

Third Part of King Henry VL, Act v. Sc. 6, 1. 11. 

Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. The good I stand 
on is my truth and honesty : 
If they shall fail, I, with mine enemies. 
Will triumph o'er my person ; which I weigh not, 
Being of those virtues vacant. 

King Henry VTIT., Act v. Sc. i, 1. 123. 

1 The lip of truth shall be established for ever : but a lying tongue is but 
for a moment. — Prov. xii. 19. 



Cljatacter not to be jungeD bv 
appearancejs* 



A7noj2g mankind we are all born alike 

0/ fat her and of mother. None excels 

Another in his nature, but the fate 

Of evil chance holds some of lis, and some 

Good fortune favours, and necessity 

Holds some in bondage. Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 518. 

Strange is it that our bloods, 
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together, 
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off 
In differences so mighty. If she be 
All that is virtuous, save what thou dislikest, 
A poor physician's daughter, thou dislikest 
Of virtue for the name : but do not so : 
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, 
The place is dignified by the doer's deed : 
Where great additions swell 's, and virtue none, 
It is a dropsied honour. Good alone 
Is good without a name. 

All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 126. 



CHARACTER NOT TO BE JUDGED BY APPEARANCES. 29 

We will unto your father's 
Even in these honest mean habiliments : 
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor ; 
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich ; 
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, 
So honour peereth in the meanest habit. 
What, is the jay more precious than the lark, 
Because his feathers are more beautiful? 
Or is the adder better than the eel, 
Because his painted skin contents the eye ? 
O, no, good Kate ; neither art thou the worse 
For this poor furniture and mean array. 

The Taming of the Shrezo, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 171. 

Once or twice 
I was about to speak and tell him plainly, 
The selfsame sun that shines upon his court 
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 
Looks on alike.'^ The IF/nier's Talc, Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 454. 

•1 He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and on the unjust. — Mait. v. 45, Compare Job xxxiv. 19. 






(amigl^teou^ Slur^ge^s. 



One of the Seven was wont to say, that laws were like cobwebs ; where 
the small flies were catight and the great b^-ake through. 

Sir Francis Bacon, Apothegms, i8r. 

O PERILOUS mouths, 
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, 
Either of condemnation or approof ! 
Bidding the law make court'sy to their will ; 
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, 
To follow as it draws ! 

Aleasiire for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 172. 

Norfolk. He [Cardinal Wolsey] dives into the king's 
soul, and there scatters 
Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience. 
Fears, and despairs ; and all these for his marriage : 
And out of all these to restore the king, 
He counsels a divorce ; a loss of her 
That, like a jewel, has hung twenty years 
About his neck, yet never lost her lustre ; 
Of her that loves him with that excellence 
That angels love good men with ; even of her 
That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls, 
Will bless the king. King Henry VIII., Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 27. 



UNRIGHTEOUS JUDGE. 3 1 

Queen Katharine. Ye tell me what ye wish for both, — my 
ruin : 
Is this your Christian council ? out upon ye ! 
Heaven is above all yet ; there sits a judge 
That no king can corrupt. 

King Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 98. 

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ; 
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it. 

King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. 168. 

Queen Katharine. I do believe. 

Induced by potent circumstances, that 
You are mine enemy, and make my challenge 
You shall not be my judge : for it is you 
Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me ; 
Which God's dew quench ! Therefore I say again, 
I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul 
Refuse you for my judge ; whom, yet once more, 
I hold my most malicious foe, and think not 
At all a friend to truth. 

King Henry VIIL, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 75. 

Thieves for their robbery have authority 
When judges steal themselves.^ 

Pleasure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 2. 1. 176. 

1 As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear ; so is a wicked ruler over the poor 
people. — Prov. xxviii. 15. 



i^oral M^pomibilitv of Eulerjs. 



Whoe'er is called to guide a state, 
And does not catch at counsels wise and good, 
But holds his peace through any fear of man, 
I deetii him basest of all t?ten that are. 

Sophocles, Antigone, 1. 17S. 

AND God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, 
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading. 
Or nicely charge your understanding soul 
With opening titles miscreate, whose right 
Suits not in native colours with the truth ; 
For God doth know how many now in health 
Shall drop their blood in approbation 
Of what your reverence shall incite us to. 
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, 
How you awake our sleeping sword of war : 
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed ; 
For never two such kingdoms did contend 
Without much fall of blood ; whose guiltless drops 
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 
'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords 
That make such waste in brief mortality. 

King Henry V., Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 13. 



MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OF RULERS. ^;^ 

King Henry (disguised) conversing with a Common Soldier, 
THE Night before the Battle of Agincourt. 

Winiams. But if the cause be not good, the king himself 
hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and 
arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together 
at the latter day and cry all ' We died at such a place ; ' some 
swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives 
left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some 
upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die 
well that die in a battle ; for how can they charitably dispose 
of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these 
men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king 
that led them to it ; whom to disobey were against all pro- 
portion of subjection. 

JC. Hen. So, if a son that is by his father sent about mer- 
chandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation 
of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his 
father that sent him : or if a servant, under his master's com- 
mand transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers 
and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the 
business of the master the author of the servant's damnation : 
but this is not so : the king is not bound to answer the par- 
ticular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the 
master of his servant ; for they purpose not their death, when 
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be 
his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of 
swordSj can try it out with all unspotted soldiers : some per- 



34 Shakespeare's morals. 

adventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and con- 
trived murder ; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken 
seals of perjury ; some, making the wars their bulwark, that 
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and 
robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and out- 
run native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they 
have no wings to fly from God : war is his beadle, war is his 
vengeance ; so that here men are punished for before-breach 
of the king's laws in now the king's quarrel : where they 
feared the death, they have borne life away ; and where they 
would be safe, they perish ; then if they die unprovided, no 
more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before 
guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. 
Every subject's duty is the king's ; but every subject's soul is his 
own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every 
sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience : 
and dying so, death is to him advantage ; or not dying, 
the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was 
gained. King Henry V., Act iv. Sc. i, I. 156. 



Lament oter c^nslann, uesranen hv 
a aittclieD Euler> 



T/iat is no state which hangs on one tnatt's will. 

Sophocles, Antigone, 1. 737. 

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times. 

Sir Francis Bacon, Essay of Ejupire. 

yoJm of Gaunt \_Unde of King Richard^ Methinks I 
am a prophet new inspired 
And thus expiring do foretell of him : 
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, 
For violent fires soon burn out themselves ; 
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short ; 
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes ; 
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder : 
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant. 
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. 
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise. 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 
Against infection and the hand of war, 
This happy breed of men, this little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea, 



36 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Which serves it in the office of a wall 

Or as a moat defensive to a house, 

Against the envy of less happier lands, 

This blessed plot, this earth, this reahii, this England, 

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 

Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth, 

Renowned for their deeds as far from home, 

For Christian service and true chivalry. 

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry 

Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son, 

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, 

Dear for her reputation through the world. 

Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it. 

Like to a tenement or pelting farm : 

England, bound in with the triumphant sea. 

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, 

With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds : 

That England, that was wont to conquer others, 

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. 

Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life. 

How happy then were my ensuing death ! 

King Richard II., Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 31. 



€]^e %mt Mav of laouticai ^ncm^. 



It is still my care to make my life, 
Not by my words illustrious, but by deeds?- 

Sophocles, CEdipus at Colonos, 1. 1143. 

There are many able and patriotic meit in the House of Cornmons, — 
Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Robert Peel, and some others; hit I grieve that 
they never have the courage or the loisdom — / knozo 7iot in -which the 
failure is — to take their stand upon duty. . . . The devil works precisely 
in the same way. He is a very clever fellow; I have no acquaitttance 
with him, but I respect his evident talents. Consistent truth and good- 
ness will assuredly in the end overcome every thing ; but inconsistent good 
can never be a inatch for consistent evil. Alas, I look in vain for some 
wise and vigorous man to soiiud the word Duty in the ears of this gen- 
eration. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk. 

Thomas Cromwell's Farewell to Wolsey. 

Thomas Cromwell \Solicitor and Confidential Servant of 
Cardinal Wolsey^. O my lord, 

Must I, then, leave you ? must I needs forego 
So good, so noble, and so true a master? 

1 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own 
selves. — James i. 22. 



38 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, 
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord. 
The king shall have my service ; but my prayers 
For ever and for ever shall be yours. 

Wolsey. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 
In all my miseries ; but thou hast forced me, 
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 
Let 's dry our eyes : and thus far hear me, Cromwell ; 
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be. 
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 
Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee, 
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory. 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour. 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. 
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then. 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it ? 
Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee ; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's. 
Thy God's, and truth's ; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr ! 

King Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 422. 



THE JUST WAY OF POLITICAL SUCCESS. 39 

Who shall go about 
To cozen fortune and be honourable 
Without the stamp of merit ? Let none presume 
To wear an undeserved dignity. 
O, that estates, degrees, and offices 
Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour 
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer ! 
How many then should cover that stand bare ! 
How many be commanded that command ! 
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd 
From the true seed of honour ! and how much honour 
Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times 
To be new-vamish'd ! 

The Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 9, 1. 38. 



^0 



i^otnet: of 9!nnocence anD !Lote» 



/ kntno her : the worst thought she has 

Is whiter even thati her pretty hand ; 

She must prove true : for, brother, where tiao fight. 

The strongest wins, and truth and love are strength. 

And you are happy. Alfred Tennyson. 



T 



HE silence often of pure innocence 
Persuades when speaking fails. 

The Wintcr^s Tale, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 41. 

Plot to burn out the Eyes of Prince Arthur. 

Scene, A room in a castle. 

Enter Hubert and Executioners. 

Hub. Heat me these irons hot ; and look thou stand 
Within the arras : when I strike my foot 
Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth, 
And bind the boy which you shall find with me 
Fast to the chair : be heedful : hence, and watch. 

First Exec. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. 
' Hub. Uncleanly scruples ! fear not you : look to 't. 

[Exeunt Executioners. 
Young lad, come forth : I have to say with you. 



POWER OF INNOCENCE AND LOVE. 41 

Enter Prince Arthur. 

Arth. Good morrow, Hubert. 

Hub. Good morrow, little prince. 

Arth. As little prince, having so great a title 
To be more prince, as may be. You are sad. 

Ilitb. Indeed I have been merrier. 

Ari/i. Mercy on me ! 

Methinks nobody should be sad but I : 
Yet, I remember, when I was in France, 
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, 
Only for wantonness. By my Christendom, 
So I were out of prison, and kept sheep, 
I should be as merry as the day is long ; 
And so I would be here, but that I doubt 
My uncle practises more harm to me : 
He is afraid of me and I of him : 
Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son ? 
No, indeed, is 't not ; and I would to heaven 
I were your son,- so you would love me, Hubert. 

Hub. [Aside.'] If I talk to him, with his innocent prate 
He will awake my mercy which lies dead : 
Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch. 

Art/i. Are you sick, Hubert ? you look pale to-day : 
In sooth, I would you were a little sick. 
That I might sit all night and watch with you : 
I warrant I love you more than you do me. 

Hub. {_Aside.'] His words do take possession of my bosom. 
Read here, young Arthur. \_S/iowi>ig a paper. 



42 Shakespeare's morals. 

[Aside.'\ How now, foolish rheum ! 
Turning dispiteous torture out of door ! 
I must be brief, lest resolution drop 
Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears. — 
Can you not read it ? is it not fair writ ? 

Arf/i. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect-: 
Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes ? 

Hud. Young boy, I must. 

Ar//i. And will you ? 

Ift^l^. And I will. 

Arf/i. Have you the heart ? When your head did but ache, 
I knit my handkercher about your brows, — 
The best I had, a princess wrought it me, — 
And I did never ask it you again ; 
And with my hand at midnight held your head, 
And like the watchful minutes to the hour. 
Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time. 
Saying, ' What lack you ? ' and ' Where lies your grief? ' 
Or ' What good love may I perform for you ? ' 
Many a poor man's son would have lien still 
And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you ; 
But you at your sick service had a prince. 
Nay, you may think my love was crafty love 
And call it cunning : do, an if you will : 
If heaven be pleased that you must use me ill. 
Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes ? 
These eyes that never did nor never shall 
So much as frown on you, 



POWER OF INNOCENCE AND LOVE. 43 

Hub. I have sworn to do it ; 

And with hot irons must I burn them out. 

Arth. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it ! 
The iron of itself, though heat red-hot. 
Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears 
And quench his fiery indignation 
Even in the matter of mine innocence ; 
Nay, after that, consume away in rust, 
But for containing fire to harm mine eye. 
Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron ? 
An if an angel should have come to me 
And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, 
I would jaot have believed him, — no tongue but Hubert's. 

Hub. Come forth. [Stamps. 

Re-enter Executioners, with a cord, irons, &=e. 

Do as I bid you do. 

Art/i. O, save me, Hubert, save me ! my eyes are out 
Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men. 

Hub. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. 

Arf/i. Alas, w^hat need you be so boisterous-rough? 
I wll not struggle, I will stand stone-still. 
For heaven-sake, Hubert, let me not be bound ! 
Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away, 
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb ; 
I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word. 
Nor look upon the iron angerly : 
Thrust but these men away, and I '11 forgive you, 
Whatever torment you do put me to. 



44 Shakespeare's morals. 

Hub. Go, stand within ; let me alone with him. 

First Exec. I am best pleased to be from such a deed. 

\_Exeimt Executioners. 

Arth. Alas, I then have chid away my friend ! 
He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart : 
Let him come back, that his compassion may 
Give life to yours. 

Hicb. Come, boy, prepare yourself. 

Arth. Is there no remedy? 

Hub. None, but to lose your eyes. 

Arth. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours, 
A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair. 
Any annoyance in that precious sense ! 
Then feeling what small things are boisterous there, 
Your vile intent must need seem horrible. 

Hub. Is this your promise ? go to, hold your tongue. 

Arth. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues 
Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes : 
Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert ; 
Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue. 
So I may keep mine eyes : O, spare mine eyes, 
Though to no use but still to look on you ! — 
Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold 
And would not harm me. 

Hub. I can heat it, boy. 

Arth. No, in good sooth ; the fire is dead with grief, 
Being create for comfort, to be used 
In undeserved extremes : see else yourself; 



POWER OF INNOCENCE AND LOVE, 45 

There is no malice in this burning coal ; 
The breath of heaven has blown his spirit out 
And strew'd repentant ashes on his head. 

Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. 

Arih. An if you do, you will but make it blush 
And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert : 
Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes ; 
And like a dog that is compell'd to fight. 
Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on. 
All things that you should use to do me wrong 
Deny their office : only you do lack 
That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends, 
Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses. 

Hub. Well, see to live ; I will not touch thine eye 
For all the treasure that thine uncle owes : 
Yet am I sworn and I did purpose, boy. 
With this same very iron to burn them out, 

Arth. O, now you look like Hubert ! all this while 
You were disguised. King John, Act iv. Sc. i, 11. 1-127. 

If powers divine 
Behold our human actions, as they do, 
I doubt not then but innocence shall make 
False accusation blush and tyranny 
Tremble at patience. The Winter's Tale, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 29. 



ilote'13 'Beginningis* 



// is a poor saying of Epicurus, " Each is to the other a theatre large 
enough : " as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven and all noble 
objects, should do 7tothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself 
a subject, though not of the mouth {as beasts are), yet of the eye ; which 
was given him for higher purposes. 

Sir Francis Bacon, Essay of Love. 

O love, in every battle victor owned ; 

Now on a maiden''s soft and blooming cheek. 

In secret ambush hid. SoPHOCLES, Antigone, 1. 782. 

Love, too, at sight, the possibility of which has been disputed by men of 
drowthy hearts and toipid imaginations, caft arise only from the meeting 
of those spirits which, before they meet, have beheld each other in inward 
vision, and are yearning to have that vision realized. 

Guesses at Truth. 

IF ever, — as that ever may be near, — 
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, 
Then shall you know the wounds invisible 
That love's keen arrows make. 

As You Like If, Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 28. 

Think not I love him, though I ask for him ; 
'Tis but a peevish boy ; yet he talks well : 
But what care I for words ? yet words do well 



love's beginnings. 47 

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. 

It is a pretty youth : not very pretty : 

But, sure, he 's proud, but yet his pride becomes him : 

He '11 make a proper man : the best thing in him 

Is his complexion ; and faster than his tongue 

Did make offence his eye did heal it up. 

He is not very tall ; yet for his years he 's tall : 

His leg is but so so ; and yet 'tis well : 

There was a pretty redness in his lip, 

A little riper and more lusty red 

Than that mix'd in his cheek ; 'twas just the difference 

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. 

There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him 

In parcels as I did, would have gone near 

To fall in love with him ; but, for my part, 

I love him not nor hate him not ; and yet 

I have more cause to hate him than to love him : 

For what had he to do to chide at me ? 

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black ; 

And, now I am remember'd, scorned at me : 

I marvel why I answer'd not again : 

But that 's all one ; omittance is no quittance. 

I '11 write to him a very taunting letter, 

And thou shalt bear it : wilt thou, Silvius? 

As You like It, Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 109. 

Duke. Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty : 
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, 



48 SHAKESPEARE'S JNIORALS. 

Prizes not quantity of dirty lands ; 

The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, 

Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune ; 

But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems 

That nature pranks her in attracts my soul. 

There is no woman's sides 
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion 
As love doth give my heart ; no woman's heart 
So big, to hold so much. . . . 

Viohr. Ay, but I know — 

Duke. What dost thou know? 

Vio. Too well what love women to men may owe : 
In faith, they are as true of heart as we. 
My father had a daughter loved a man, 
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, 
I should your lordship. 

■Duke. - And what 's her history ? 

Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love, 
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 
Feed on her damask cheek : she pined in thought. 
And with a green and yellow melancholy 
She sat like patience on a monument. 
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed ? 
We men may say more, swear more : but indeed 
Our shows are more than will ; for still we prove 
Much in our vows, but litde in our love. 

Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 8- 



love's beginnings. 49 

Lysander. How now, my love ! why is your cheek so 
pale? 
How chance the roses there do fade so fast ? 

Hennia. Belike for want of rain, which I could well 
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. 

Lys. Ay me ! for aught that I could ever read, 
Could ever hear by tale or history, 
The course of true love never did run smooth ; 
But, either it was different in blood, — 
Or else misgraffed in respect of years, — 
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends, — 
Or if there were a sympathy in choice, 
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, 
Making it momentany as a sound. 
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ; 
Brief as the lightning in the cellied night, 
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, 
And e'er a man hath power to say ' Behold ! ' 
The jaws of darkness do devour it up : 
So quick bright things come to confusion. 

Her. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd. 
It stands as an edict in destiny : 
Then let us teach our trial patience, 
Because it is a customary cross, 
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs. 
Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers. 

A Midsiimmer-NighCs Dream, Act i. Sc. t, 1. 128. 



50 Shakespeare's morals. 

Miranda. You look wearily. 

Ferdinand. No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with 
me 
When you are by at night. I do beseech you — 
Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers — 
What is your name ? 

Mir. Miranda. — O my father, 

I have broke j^our best to say so ! 

P^^- Admired Miranda ! 

Indeed the top of admiration ! worth 
What 's dearest to the world ! Full many a lady 
I have eyed with best regard, and many a time 
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage 
Brought my too diligent ear : for several virtues 
Have I liked several women ; never any 
With so full soul, but some defect in her 
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed 
And put it to the foil : but you, O you. 
So perfect and so peerless, are created 
Of every creature's best ! 

Mir. I do not know 

One of my sex ; no woman's face remember. 
Save, from my glass, mine own ; nor have I seen 
More that I may call men than you, good friend. 
And my dear father : how features are abroad, 
I am skilless of; but, by my modesty. 
The jewel in my dower, I would not wish 
Any companion in the world but you. 



love's beginnings. 51 

Nor can imagination form a shape, 
Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle 
Something too wildly, and my father's precepts 
I therein do forget. 

jper. I am in my condition 

A prince, Miranda ; I do thmk, a king ; 
I would, not so ! — and would no more endure 
This wooden slavery than to suffer 
The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak : 
The very instant that I saw you, did 
My heart fly to your service ; there resides. 
To make me slave to it ; and for your sake 
Am I this patient log-man. 

Mir. Do you love me ? 

Fer, O heaven, O earth, bear witness to the sound, 
And crown what I profess with kind event 
If I speak true ! if hollowly, invert 
What best is boded me to mischief ! I 
Beyond all limit of what else i' the world 
Do love, prize, honour you. 

Mir. I am a fool 

To weep at what I am glad of. 

Prospero. Fair encounter 

Of two most rare affections ! Heavens rain grace 
On that which breeds between 'em ! 

Fer. Wherefore weep you ? 

Mir. At mine unworthiness that dare not ofler 
What I desire to give, and much less take 



52 Shakespeare's morals. 

What I shall die to want. But this is trifling ; 

And all the more it seeks to hide itself, 

The bigger bulk it shows. Hence bashful cunning ! 

And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! 

I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 

If not, I '11 die your maid : to be your fellow 

You may deny me ; but I '11 be your servant, 

Whether you will or no. 

The Tempest, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 32. 



jHan anu Moman tl^e Complement 
of eacli otijer* 



What house hath ever gained prosperity, 

How swolii soever with pride, without the grace 

O/womait's nobler nature. Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 679. 

Woman is not undevelopt man. 
But diverse : could we tnake her as the tnan 
Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this. 
Not like to like, but like in difference. 
Yet in the long years liker mtist they grow ; 
The man be more of woman, she of man. 

Alfred Tennyson, The Princess. 

That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch, 
Is niece to England : look upon the years 
Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid : 
If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, 
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch? 
If zealous love should go in search of virtue, 
Where should he find it purer than in Blanch ? 
If love ambitious sought a match of birth, 
Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch ? 
Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth. 
Is the young Dauphin every way complete : 



54 Shakespeare's morals. 

If not complete of, say he is not she ; 

And she again wants nothing, to name want, 

If want it be not that she is not he : 

He is the half part of a blessed man, 

Left to be finished by such a she ; 

And she a fair divided excellence, 

Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.^ 

O, two such silver currents, when they join, 

Do glorify the banks that bound them in ; 

And two such shores to two such streams made one, 

Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings, 

To these two princes, if you marry them. 

King John, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 423. 

' Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman with- 
out the man, in the Lord. — i Cor. xi. 11. 



€i)z €rue mitt. 



When a man dwells in love, then the smiles of his wife are pleasant as 
the droppings npon the hill of Hervion. Her eyes are fair as the light 
of heaven ; she is a fountain sealed and he can quench his thirst and ease 
his cares, and lay his sorrow down upon her lap, and can retire home to 
his sanctuary and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshmeitts. 

Jeremy Taylor. 

A wedded man, in his estaat 
Lyveth a lyf blisful a7td ordinaat. 
Under this yok of mariage ybounde. 
Wei may his herte injoye and blisse habounde. 
For who kan be so buxom [obedient] as a wyf? 
Who is so trewe and eek so ententyf 
To kepe hym, syk and hool, as is his make [mate] ? 
For wele or wo she wole hym nat forsake. 
She nys nat wery hym to love and serve 
Thogh that he lye bedrede til he sterve \die\. . . . 
How myghte a maft han any adversitee 
That hath a wyf? Certes, I kan nat seye. 

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1. 13, 619. 

Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate 
him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and 
give such intrepidity and ele7.iation to their character, that at times it 
approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be more touching than to behold a 
soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and 
alive to every trivial roughness, while treading the prosperous paths of 



56 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS, 

life^ suddenly rising in mental force to he the comforter and support of 
her husband under misfortune, and abiding, with unshrinkittg firmness, 
to the bitterest blasts of adversity. 

Wasiiingtun Irving, The Wife. 

Portia. Dear my lord, 

Make me acquainted with your cause of grief. 

Brutus. I am not well in health, and that is all. 

For. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health, 
He would embrace the means to come by it. 

Bru. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed. 

For. Is Brutus sick ? and is it physical 
To walk unbraced and suck up the humours 
Of the dank morning ? What, is Brutus sick, 
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed, 
To dare the vile contagion of the night 
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air 
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus ; 
You have some sick offence within your mind, 
AVhich, by the right and virtue of my place, 
I ought to know of : and, upon my knees \Jaicclmg\y 
I charm you, by my once-commended beauty. 
By all your vows of love and that great vow 
Which did incorporate and make us one. 
That you unfold to me, yourself, your half. 
Why you are heavy, and what men to-night 
Have had resort to you : for here have been 
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces 
Even from darkness. 



THE TRUE WIFE. 57 

Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia. 

For. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. 
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 
Is it excepted I should know no secrets 
That appertain to you ? Am I yourself 
But, as it were, in sort or limitation, 
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
And talk to you sometimes ? Dwell I but in the suburbs 
Of your good pleasure ? If it be no more, 
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 

Bru. You are my true and honourable wife. 
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
That visit my sad heart. 

Par. If this were true, then should I know this secret. 
I grant I am a woman ; but withal 
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife : 
I grant I am a woman ; but withal 
A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. 
Think you I am no stronger than my sex, 
Being so father'd and so husbanded ? 
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em : 
I have made strong proof of my constancy, 
Giving myself a voluntary wound 
Here, in the thigh : can I bear that with patience. 
And not my husband's secrets ? 

Bru. O ye gods, 

Render me worthy of this noble wife ! ^ 

yuliiis Ccrsar, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 255. 

1 House and riches arc the inheritance of fathers : and a prudent wife is 
from the Lord. — Prov. xix. 14. 



58 Shakespeare's morals. 

Brabantio. Come hither, gentle mistress : 

Do you perceive in all this noble company 
Where most you owe obedience ? 

Desdemona. My noble father, 

I do perceive here a divided duty : 
To you I am bound for life and education ; 
My Ufe and education both do learn me 
How to respect you ; you are the lord of duty ; 
I am hitherto your daughter : but here 's my husband, 
And so much duty as my mother show'd 
To you, preferring you before her father,^ 
So much I challenge that I may profess 
Due to the Moor my lord. Othello, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 177. 



Portia. You see me. Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
Such as I am : though for myself alone 
I would not be ambitious in my wish. 
To wish myself much better ; yet, for you 
I would be trebled twenty times myself ; 
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times 
More rich ; 

That only to stand high in your account, 
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, 
Exceed account ; but the full sum of me 
Is sum of somethmg, which, to term in gross, 

1 For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his 
wife : and they twain shall be one flesh. — Matt. xix. 5. 



THE TRUE WIFE. 59 

Is an unlesson'd girl, unsshool'd, unpractised ; 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; happier than this, 
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed, 
As from her lord,^ her governor, her king. 
Myself and what is mine to you and yours 
Is now converted : but now I was the lord 
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants. 
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now, 
This house, these servants and this same myself 
Are yours, my lord : I give them with this ring ; 
Which when you part from, lose, or give away, 
Let it presage the ruin of your love 
And be my vantage to exclaim on you. 

Bassanio. Madam, you have bereft me of all words, 
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins ; 
And there is such confusion in my powers, 
As, after some oration fairly spoke 
By a beloved prince, there doth appear 
Among the buzzing pleased multitude ; 
Where every something, being blent together. 
Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy, 
Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring 

1 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. — 
Eph. V. 22. 



6o Shakespeare's morals. 

Parts from this finger, then parts Hfe fi-om hence : 
O, then be bold to say Bassanio 's dead ! 

Merchant of Venice^ Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 150. 

Qjieeti Katherine \to Henry VII/.']. Alas, sir. 
In what have I offended you ? what cause 
Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure. 
That thus you should proceed to put me off, 
And take your good grace from me ? Heaven witness, 
I have been to you a true and humble wife, 
At all times to your will conformable ; 
Ever in fear to kindle your dislike. 
Yea, subject to your countenance, glad or sorry 
As I saw it inclined : when was the hour 
I ever contradicted your desire. 
Or made it not mine too ? Or which of your friends 
Have I not strove to love, although I knew 
He were mine enemy ? what friend of mine 
That had to him derived your anger, did I 
Continue in my liking? nay, gave notice 
He was from thence discharged ? Sir, call to mind 
That I have been your wife, in this obedience. 
Upward of twenty years,^ and have been blest 
With many children by you : if, in the course 
And process of this time, you can report, 
And prove it too, against mine honour aught, 

1 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. — Prov. xxxi. 



THE TRUE WIFE. 6 1 

My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty, 
Against your sacred person, in God's name, 
Turn me away ; and let the foul'st contempt 
Shut door upon me, and so give me up 
To the sharp'st kind of justice. 

King Heniy VIII., Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 18. 

Queen Katherine [to the Cardinals^. Have I lived thus 
long — let me speak myself. 
Since virtue finds no friends — a wife, a true one ? 
A woman, I dare say without vain-glory. 
Never yet branded with suspicion ? 
Have I with all my full affections 

Still met the king ? loved him next heaven ? obey'd him ? 
Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him ? 
Almost forgot my prayers to content him ? 
And am I thus rewarded ? 'tis not well, lords. 
Bring me a constant woman to her husband, 
One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure ; 
And to that woman, when she has done most. 
Yet ^vill I add an honour, a great patience. 

Do what ye will, my lords : and, pray, forgive me. 

If I have used myself unmannerly ; 

You know I am a woman, lacking wit 

To make a seemly answer to such persons. 

Pray, do my service to his majesty : 

He has my heart yet ; and shall have my prayers 



62 Shakespeare's morals. 

While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers, 
Bestow your counsels on me : she now begs. 
That little thought, when she set footing here. 
She should have bought her dignities so dear. 

King Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 125 and 175. 



i^an tl^e l^eaD of tl^e raoman- 



No greater evil can a man endure 

Than a bad wife, nor find a greater good 

Than one both good and wise; and each man speaks 

As Judging by the experience of his life. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 608. 

Nmv comth how that a man sholde bere hy?n with his wif; and 
namely [especially] in two thynges, that is to seyn, in suffraimce and 
reverence, as shewed Crist whan he made first womman. For he ne 
made hire nat of the heved [head] of Adam for she sholde nat clayme to 
greet lordshipe. Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1. 19, 169. 

The Shrew converted. 

FIE, fie ! Unknit that threatening unkind brow ; 
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, 
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor : 
It blots thy beauty, as frosts do bite the meads ; 
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds ; 
And in no sense is meet, or amiable. 
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, 
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty ; 
And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty 
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it. 



64 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Thy husband is thy lord, thy Ufe, thy keeper, 

Thy head/ thy sovereign ; one that cares for thee, 

And for thy maintenance commits his body 

To painful labour, both by sea and land ; 

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, 

While thou hest warm at home, secure and safe ; 

And craves no other tribute at thy hands, 

But love, fair looks, and true obedience ; — 

Too little payment for so great a debt. 

Such duty as the subject owes the prince. 

Even such a woman oweth to her husband ; 

And, when she 's forward, peevish, sullen, sour. 

And not obedient to his honest will, 

What is she but a foul contending rebel. 

And graceless traitor to her loving lord ? — 

I am ashamed that women are so simple 

To offer war where they shoiild kneel for peace ; 

Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, 

When they are bound to serve, love, and obey. 

Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth. 

Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, 

But that our soft conditions and our hearts 

Should well agree with our external parts ? 

T/ie Taming of the Slu-ew, Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 136. 

■ But I would have j'ou know, that the head of every man is Christ ; and 
the head of the woman is the man. — 1 Cor. xi. 3. 



l> 



€]^e iittmitv of ptmutancz. 



" He to whom men pay honor's noble meed 

Has need of noble deeds innumerable. 

And out of easy conflict there can co7ne 

But little glory." SoPHOCLES, Fragments, 1. 675. 

TIME hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, 
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, 
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes : 
Those scraps are good deeds past ; which are devour'd 
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon 
As done : perseverance, dear my lord, 
Keeps honour bright : to have done is to hang 
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way ; 
For honour travels in a strait so narrow, 
Where one but goes abreast : keep then the path ; 
For emulation hath a thousand sons 
That one by one pursue : if you give way. 
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, 
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by 
And leave you hindmost ; 
Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, 
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, 



66 Shakespeare's morals. 

O'er-run and trampled on : then what they do in present, 

Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours ; 

For time is like a fashionable host 

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, 

And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly. 

Grasps in the comer : welcome ever smiles, 

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek 

Remuneration for the thing it was ; ^ 

For beauty, wit, 

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, 

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all 

To envious and calumniating time. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, 

That all with one consent praise new-born gawds. 

Though they are made and moulded of things past. 

And give to dust that is a little gilt 

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. 

Troihis and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 145. 

1 Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those 
things which are before, I press toward the mark. — Phd. iii. 13. 

For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beg[inning of our con- 
fidence stedfast unto the end. — Heb. iii. 14. 



€l)e l^otper of Sjmagination. 



Imagination lofty and refined: 

'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower 

Of Faith, and round the Sufferer'' s temples bind 

Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, 

And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest luind. 

William Wordsworth. 

We want the touch of Chrisfs hand upon our literature as it touched 
other dead things ; we want the sense of the saturation of Christ'' s blood 
upon the souls of otcr poets, that it may cry through them in answer to 
the ceaseless wail of the sphinx of our humanity, expounding agotty into 
renovation. Something of this kind has been perceived in art when its 
glory was at the fullest. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Greek Christian Poets. 

I NEVER may believe 
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. 
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
Such shaping phantasies, that apprehend 
More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
The lunatic, the lover and the poet 
Are of imagination all compact : 
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, 
That is, the madman : the lover, all as frantic. 



68 Shakespeare's morals. 

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt : 

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 

And as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination, 

That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 

It comprehends some bringer of that joy ; 

Or in the night, imagining some fear. 

How easy is a bush supposed a bear ! 

A Midsuvimer-A^ight'' s Dream, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 2. 

There may be in the cup 
A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart. 
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge 
Is not infected : but if one present 
The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, 
With violent hefts. The Winter's Tale, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 39. 



Cije po'wn of 2Hi0t)om. 



Nier can the wise grow old, in whom there dwells 
A soul sustained with light of heaven^ s own day : 
Great gain to men is forethought such as theirs. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 688. 

The wisdom zvhich aims at something nobler and more lasting than 
the kingdom of this world, may nozo and then find that the kingdom of 
this world will also fall into its lap. How much longer and viore widely 
has Aristotle reigned than Alexander ! with how much more power and 
glory Luther than Charles the Fifth ! His breath still works miracles at 
this day. Guesses at Truth. 

WISDOM and fortune combating together, 
If that the former dare but what it can. 
No chance may shake it.^ 

Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. Sc. 13, I. 79. 

How poor are they that have not patience ! 
What wound did ever heal but by degrees ? ^ 

Othello, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 376. 

1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. — Psalm 
.xlvi. I. 

2 Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
wanting nothing. — James i. 4. 



70 Shakespeare's morals. 

I shall be well content with any choice 
Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.^ 

First Part King Henry VI., Act v. Sc. i, 1. 26. 

Sorrow and Patience of King Lear's only loving Daughter. 

Earl of Kent. Did your letters pierce the queen to any 
demonstration of grief? 

Gentleman. Ay, sir ; she took them, read them in my pres- 
ence ; 
And now and then an ample tear trill'd down 
Her delicate cheek : it seem'd she was a queen 
Over her passion ; who, most rebel-like, 
Sought to be king o'er her. 

Kent. O, then it moved her. 

Gent. Not to a rage ; patience and sorrow strove 
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen 
Sunshine and rain at once : her smiles and tears 
Were like a better day : those happy smiles, 
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know 
What guests were in her eyes ; which parted thence, 
As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief, 
Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved, 
If all could so become it. 

Kent. Made she no verbal question? 

Gent. 'Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of 
' father ' 

1 I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. — Phil. 
iv. II. 



THE POWER OF WISDOM. yi 

Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart : 

Cried ' Sisters ! sisters ! Shame of ladies ! sisters ! 

Kent ! father ! sisters ! What, i' the storm ? i' the night ? 

Let pity not be believed ! ' There she shook 

The holy water from her heavenly eyes, 

And clamour moisten'd : then away she started 

To deal with grief alone. King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 1 1. 

He covets less 

Than misery itself would give ; rewards 

His deeds with doing them ; and is content 

To spend the time, to end it. 

Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 130. 



^el^l^notDlctjge* 



Not the truth of which any one is, or supposes himself to be, possessed, 
but the upright endeavor he has made to arrive at truth snakes the worth 
of the man. For not by the possession, btit by the investigation, of truth 
are his powers expanded, wherein alone his ever-gro^iving perfection 
exists. Possession makes us easy, indolent, proud. 

If God held all truth shut up in his right hand, and in his left nothing 
but the ever restless instinct for truth, though with the condition of ez>er 
and for ever erring, atid should say to me. Choose ! I should bow humbly 
to his left hand, and say. Father, give ! pure truth is for Thee alo7je. 

Lessing, quoted by Lowell, " A7nong My Books," First Series, p. 347. 

A soul with good intent and purpose jitst 
Discerns far more than lecturer can teach}- 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 88. 

Surely people must know themselves ; so few ever think about any thing 
else. Yes, they think what they have, what they shall get, hoiv they shall 
appear, what they shall do, perchance now and then what they shall be, 
but never, or hardly ever, what they are. Guesses at Ti'icth. 

Go to your bosom ; 
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know- 
That 's like my brother's fault : if it confess 
A natural guiltiness such as is his, 

1 I have more understanding than all my teachers : for thy testimonies are 
my meditation. — Psalm c.xix. 99. 



SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 73 

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue 
Against my brother's life.-^ 

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 136. 

I and my bosom must debate a while, 
And then I would no other company. 

King Heiijy V., Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 31. 

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, 

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste ; 

The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, 

And of this book this learning may'st thou taste. 

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, 

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory ; 

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth may'st know 

Time's thievish progress to eternity. 

Look, what thy memory can not obtain 

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find 

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain. 

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. 

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look. 

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book. 

Sonnet, Ixxvii. 

Better conquest never canst thou make 
Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts 
Against these giddy loose suggestions. 

King JoJui, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 290. 

1 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then 
shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. — Matt. 
vii. 5. 



74 Shakespeare's morals. 

I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against 
whom I know most faults. As You Like It, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 297. 

Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put 
them to mending. 

Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 238. 

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, 
But graciously to know I am no better. 

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 76. 



/^ 



Cl^e 5©utt of jSl^otding jai^ercr. 



The ostentation of hypocrites is eiier confined to the works of the first 
table of the law, which prescribes our duties to God. The reason is two- 
fold : both because works of this class have a greater pomp of sanctity, 
and because they interfere less with their desires. The way to convict a 
hypocrite therefore is to send him from the works of sacrifice to the works 
of mercy. Whence the text: "Pure religion aitd undefiled before God 
and the Father is this, to visit the orphans and widows in their afiiic- 
tion ; " and that other, " He who loveth not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen ? " 

Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacra:. 

Portia. Do you confess the bond ? 

Antonio. I do. 

Portia. Then must the Jew be merciful. 

Shylock. On what compulsion must I ? tell me that. 

Portia. The quality of mercy is not strain'd, 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes ; ' 

* Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain niercj'. — Matt. iv. 7. 



d 



76 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest : it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown : 

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 

But mercy is above this sceptred sway ; 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 

It is an attribute to God himself; 

Aq earthly power doth then show hkest God's 

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 

That, in the course of justice, none of us 

Should see salvation : ^ we do pray for mercy ; 

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much 

To mitigate the justice of thy plea ; 

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice 

Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there. 

Shylock. My deeds upon my head ! - I crave the law, 
The penalty and forfeit of my bond. 

The Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 181. 

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs. 

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 

The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, 

1 Now the just shall live by faith. — Heb. x. 38. 

2 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our 
children. — Matt, xxvii. 25. 



THE DUTY OF SHOWING MERCY. 77 

Become them with one-half so good a grace 
As mercy does. 

Measure for Pleasure, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 59. 

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ? 
Draw near them then in being merciful : 
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge. 

Titus Androniacs, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 117. 



^otiiumm of 31njuriei0!» 



I seye, thyn enemy shallow love for Goddes sake by his coniandement, 
for if it were reson that a man sholde haten his enemy, for sothe God 
nolde nat reccyven us to his love that been hise enemys. 

GEOFrRKY Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, \. 18,766. 

Buckingham hefore ins Execution. 

All good people, 
You that thus for have come to pity me, 
Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me. 
I have this day received a traitor's judgment, 
And l)y that name must die : yet, heaven bear witness, 
And if I have a conscience, let it sink me, 
Even as the axe foils, if I be not faithful ! 
The law I bear no malice for my death ; 
'T has done, upon the premises, but justice : 
But tliose that sought it I could wish more Christians : 
Be what they will, I heartily forgive 'em : 
Yet let 'em look they glory not in mischief, 
Nor build their evils on the graves of great men ; 
For then my guiltless blood must cry against 'em. 
For further life in this world I ne'er hope. 
Nor will I sue, altliough the king have mercies 



FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 79 

More than I dare make faults. You few that loved me, 

And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, 

His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave 

Is only bitter to him, only dying, 

Go with me, like good angels, to my end ; 

And, as the long divorce of steel falls on me, 

Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, 

And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, o' God's name. 

Sir Thomas Lovell. I do beseech your grace, for charity. 
If ever any malice in your heart 
Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly. 

Buck. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you 
As I would be forgiven : ^ I forgive all ; 
There cannot be those numberless offences 
'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with : no black envy 
Shall mark my grave. Commend me to his grace ; 
And, if he speak of Buckingham, pray, tell him 
You met him half in heaven : my vows and prayers 
Yet are the king's ; and, till my soul forsake, 
Shall cry for blessings on him : may he live 
Longer than I have time to tell his years ! 
Ever beloved and loving may his rule be ! 
And when old time shall lead him to his end, 
Goodness and he fill up one monument ! 

King lien )■)' VIFf., Act 2, Sc. i, 1. 55. 

1 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also for- 
give you : but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father 
forgive your trespasses. — Matt.s'x. 14, 15. 



•forecast anti matcl^fuine^^. 



Shice we have rightly viade our prayer to God, 
Let us no'cv go, O boys, to where the wise 
Impart their knowledge of the Muses' arts. 
Each day we need to take some forward step, 
Till we gain power to study nobler things. 
Evil a boy will learn without a guide. 
With little labour, learning front himself; 
But good, not even with his teacher tiear. 
Dwells in his soul, but is full hardly gained : 
Let us then, boys, be watchful, and work hard. 
Lest we should seem with men untaught to rank. 
The children of a father far from home. 

Sophocles, Eragments, 1. 779. 

Determine on some course, 
More than a wild exposture to each chance 
That starts i' the way before thee. 

Coriolanns, Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 35. 

I '11 undertake 't : 
I think he '11 hear me. Yet, to bite his lip 
And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me. 
He was not taken well ; he had not dined : 



FORECAST AND WATCHFULNESS. 8 1 

The veins unfill'd our blood is cold, and then 

We pout upon the morning, are unapt 

To give or to forgive ; but when we have stuff 'd 

These pipes and these conveyances of our blood 

With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls 

Than in our priest-like fasts : therefore I '11 watch him 

Till he be dieted to my request, 

And then I '11 set upon him, 

Coriolamis, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 47. 

Before the times of change, still is it so : 
By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust 
Ensuing dangers ; as, by proof, we see 
The waters swell before a boisterous storm. 
But leave it all to God. 

King Richard III., Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 41. 

There is a history in all men's lives, 
Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; 
The which obsei-ved, a man may prophesy. 
With a near aim, of the main chance of things 
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds 
And weak beginnings lie intreasured. 
Such things become the hatch and brood of time. 

Second Part of King Henry IV., Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 80. 

The providence that 's in a watchful state 
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, 
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps, 



82 Shakespeare's morals. 

Keeps place with thought and almost, hke the gods, 
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. 

Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 196. 

We see which way the stream of time doth run 
And are enforced from our most quiet sphere 
By the rough torrent of occasion. 

Secojid Part of King Henry IV., Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 70. 

We '11 set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there 's 

no labouring i' the winter.-^ 

King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 4, !. 68. 

1 The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the sum- 
mer. — Prov. XXX. 25, 



Clje I5enef(cent mt of Calenw and 
mtaltl). 



Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution ; the 
rest is but conceit. . . . A great state left to an heir, is as a lure to all the 
birds of prey to seize on him. . . . Therefore defer not charities till death; 
for, certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal 
of another viands than of his own. 

Sir Francis Bacon, Essay on Riches. 

A pig may J>oke his nose into the trough and think d' nothing outside 
it; but if you've got a man's heart and soul in yott, you can'' t be easy a- 
making your own bed an'' leaving the rest to lie on the stones. 

George Eliot, Adam Bede. 

Thyself and thy belongings 
Are not thy own so proper as to waste 
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.^ 
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd 
But to fine issues, nor nature never lends 
The smallest scruple of her excellence 

• And ye are not your own ; for ye are bought with a price. — i Cor. vi. 19. 



84 Shakespeare's morals. 

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 

Herself the glory of a creditor. 

Both thanks and use. Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 30. 

That man, how dearly ever parted. 
How much in having, or without or in. 
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath. 
Nor feels not what he owes [owns], but by reflection ; 
As when his virtues shining upon others 
Heat them and they retort that heat again 
To the first giver. 

No man is the lord of any thing. 
Though in and of him there be much consisting, 
Till he communicate his parts to others ; 
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught 
Till he behold them form'd in the applause 
Where they 're extended ; who, like an arch, reverberates 
The voice again, or, like a gate of steel 
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 
His figure and his heat. 

Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 96. 

Fair sir, I pity her 
And wish, for her sake more than for mine own, 
My fortunes were more able to relieve her ; 
But I am shepherd to another man 
And do not shear the fleeces that I graze : 
My master is of churHsh disposition 



THE BENEFICENT USE OF TALENTS AND WEALTH. 85 

And little recks to find the way to heaven 
By doing deeds of hospitahty : 
Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed 
Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now, 
By reason of his absence, there is nothing 
That you will feed on ; but what is, come see. 
And in my voice most welcome shall you be. 

As Yoic Like It, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 75. 

King Lear. Prithee, go in thyself ; seek thine own ease : 

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder 

On things would hurt me more. . . . 

I '11 pray, and then I '11 sleep. 

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are. 

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, 

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, 

Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you 

From seasons such as these ? O, I have ta'en 

Too little care of this ! ^ Take physic, pomp ; 

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 

That thou mayst shake the superflux to them. 

And show the heavens more just. 

King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 23. 

For his bounty. 
There was no winter in 't ; an autumn 'twas 
That grew the more by reaping.^ 

Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 86. 

' Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do 
ye even so to them. — Matt. vii. 12. 

2 There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth. — Prov. xi. 24. 



6^ 



Cl^e atrtue ot €>rDer' ann J^egree. 



7%^ U7t'written laws of God that know no change^ 
They are not of to-day nor yesterday. 
But live for ever, nor can man assign 
When first they sprang to being. 

Sophocles, Antigone, 1. 455. 

Government. 

Government, though high and low and lower, 
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent, 
Congreeing in a full and natural close, 
Like music. 

Therefore doth heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions,^ 
Setting endeavor in continual motion ; 

1 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and 
a portion to her maidens. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and 
eateth not the bread of idleness. — Prov. xxi. 15. 

2 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; because that 
which may be known of God is manifest in them ; for God hath shewed it unto 
them. — Ro7n. i. 18. 

3 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power 
but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God. — Rom. xiii. i. 



THE VIRTUE OF ORDER AND DEGREE. 87 

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, 

Obedience : for so work the honey-bees, 

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach 

The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

They have a king and officers of sorts ; 

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, 

(3thers, like merchants, venture trade abroad. 

Others, like soldiers, arm6d in their stings. 

Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds. 

Which pillage they with merry march bring home 

To the tent-royal of their emperor ; 

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 

The singing masons building roofs of gold. 

The civil citizens kneading up the honey, 

The poor mechanic porters crowding in 

Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate, 

The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 

Delivering o'er to executors pale 

The lazy yawning drone. 

King Henry V., Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 180. 



The Result of the Neglect of Order and Degree. 

The specialty of rule hath been neglected : 
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand 
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. 
When that the general is not like the hive. 
To whom the foragers shall all repair, 



SS SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

What honey is expected ? Degree being vizarded, 
Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. . . . 

O ! when degree is shak'd, 
Which is the ladder of all high designs, 
The enterprise is sick ! How could communities, 
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, 
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, ' 
The primogenitive and due of birth. 
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, 
But by degree, stand in authentic place ? 
Take but degree away, untune that string, 
And, hark, what discord follows ! each thing meets 
In mere oppugnancy : the bounded waters 
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores 
And make a sop of all this solid globe : 
Strength should be lord of imbecility. 
And the rude son should strike his father dead : 
Force should be right ; or rather, right and wrong, 
Between whose endless jar justice resides. 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
Then every thing includes itself in power, 
Power into will, will into appetite ; 
And appetite, an universal wolf, 
So doubly seconded with Avill and power. 
Must make perforce an universal prey. 
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, 
This chaos, when degree is suffocate. 
Follows the choking. 



THE VIRTUE OF ORDER AND DEGREE. 89 

And this neglection of degree it is 

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose 

It hath to climb. The general 's disdain'd 

By him one step below, he by the next, 

That next by him beneath ; so every step, 

Exampled by the first pace that is sick 

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever 

Of pale and bloodless emulation. 

And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot. 

Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, 

Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength. 

Troiliis and Cressida, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 78. 



ptoxaptnm in action. 



JVb good e'er comes of leisure pttrposeless, 

And heaven Jie'er helps the men who will not act. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 288. 

True dispatch is a rich thing ; foj' time is the measure of business, as 
money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where there is 
small dispatch. The Spartans and Spaniards have been noted to be of 
small dispatch : Mi venga la muerte de Spagna, {majy my death come 
from Spain) for then it will be sure to be long in coming. 

Sir Francis Bacon ; Essay of Dispatch. 

By how much unexpected, by so much 
We must awake endeavour for defence ; 
For courage mounteth with occasion. 

King John, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 80. 

Let 's take the instant by the forward top ; 
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees 
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time 
Steals ere we can effect them. 

Att's Well that Ends Well, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 39. 

Ebbing men, indeed. 

Most often do so near the bottom run 

By their own fear or sloth. 

The Tempest, Act ii. Sc. i, 1, 226. 



PROMPTNESS IN ACTION. 9 1 

That we would do, 

We should do when we would ; for this ' would ' changes 

And hath abatements and delays as many 

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents ; ^ 

And then this ' should ' is like a spendthrift sigh, 

That hurts by easing. ^, , ^ a . • c ^ 

■' ° Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7, 1. 119. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men. 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune : 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 

And we must take the current when it serves. 

Or lose our ventures. ^ ,. ^ . ■ ^ , n 

Julius Casar, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 218. 

Fearful commenting 
Is leaden servitor to dull delay ; 
Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary. 

Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 3, 1, 51. 

Beware ; — 
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves : 
Omission to do what is necessary 
Seals a commission to a blank of danger ; 
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints 
Even then when we sit idly in the sun. 

Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 228. 

1 The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns : but the way of the 
righteous is made plain. — Prov. xv. 19. 



92 Shakespeare's morals. 

Our doubts are traitors 

And make us lose the good we oft might win 

By fearing to attempt. 

Measure for Measure, Act i. Sc. 4, 1. 77. 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 
Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky- 
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull 
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. 

Impossible be strange attempts to those 

That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose 

What hath been cannot be. 

AlVs Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 231. 

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook 

Unless the deed go with it. 

Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. i, I. 145. 



Cl^e foU^ of Ea0]^nej50- 



/ knew a wise man, that had it for a by-ivord, zvhen he saw men hasten 
to a conclusion, " Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner." 

Sir Francis Bacon, Apothegms, 14. 

Over-zeal 
That still will meddle, little wisdom shows. 

Sophocles, Antigone, 1. 67. 

Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that 
can be : it is like that zahich the physicians call predigestion, or hasty 
digestion, zvhich is sure to fill the body of crudities and secret seeds of 
diseases. Therefore measure ttot dispatch by the tinie of sitting, but by the 
advancement of the business : and as in races it is not the large stride, or 
high lift, that makes the speed, so in business, the keeping close to the mat- 
ter, and not taking of it too much at once, procureth dispatch. 

Sir Francis Bacon, Essay of Dispatch. 

Norfolk. Stay, my lord, 

And let your reason with your choler question ^ 

What 'tis you go about : to cUmb steep hills 

Requires slow pace at first : anger is like 

A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way, 

Self-mettle tires him. 

King He7iry VIII., Act i. Sc. i, 1. 129. 

"^ He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding : but he that is hasty of 
spirit exalteth folly. — Prov. xiv. 29. 



94 Shakespeare's morals. 

^dile. Worthy tribunes, 

There is a slave, whom we have put in prison, 
Reports, the Volsces with two several powers 
Are enter'd in the Roman territories. 
And with the deepest malice of the war 
Destroy what lies before 'em. . . . 

Brutus. Go see this rumourer whipped. It cannot be 
The Volsces dare break with us. 

Meninius. Cannot be ! 

We have record that very well it can. 

And three examples of the like have been 

Within my age. But reason with the fellow, 

Before you punish him, where he heard this, 

Lest you shall chance to whip your information 

And beat the messenger who bids beware 

Of what is to be dreaded. 

Coriolaitus, Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. 37. 

Norfolk. Be advised ; 

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot 
That it do singe yourself. We may outrun. 
By violent swiftness, that which we run at. 
And lose by over-running. 

King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc. i, 1. 140. 



Z\)t mim of Eecreatton. 



A^o mortal nature can endure, either in the actions of religion or study 
of wisdom, without sometime slackening the cords of inte7tse thought and 
labor. . . . We cannot, therefore, always be contemplative or pragmatical 
abroad, but have need of sotne delightful intermissions, wherein the en- 
larged {freed) soul may leave off awhile her severe schooling, and, like 
a glad youth in wandering vacancy, may keep her holidays to joy and 
harmless pastime. John Milton, Tetrachordon. 

These should be hours for necessities, 
Not for delights ; times to repair our nature 
With comforting repose, and not for us 

To wasted King Henry VIIL, Act v. Sc. I, 1. 2. 

Svyeet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue 
But moody and dull melancholy, 
Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair. 
And at her heels a huge infectious troop 
Of pale distemperatures and foes to life ? 

77/^? Comedy of E^-rors, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 78. 

1 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and 
rest a while. — Mark vi. 31. 



96 Shakespeare's morals. 

Universal plodding prisons up 
The nimble spirits in the arteries, 
As motion and long-during action tires 
The sinewy vigour of the traveller. 

Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 305. 



Ci^e Cur^e of atarice- 



7%^ miser is more industrious than the saint: the pains of getting, the 
fears of losing, and the inability of enjoying his wealth, have been the 
mark of satire in all ages. Were his repentance upon his neglect of a 
good ba7gain, his sorrow for being overreached, his hope of improving 
a sum, and his fear of falling into want, directed to their proper objects, 
they would make so many different Christian graces and virtues. He 
may apply to himself a great part of Saint Paul''s catalogue of sufferings : 
^^Injourtteyings often ; in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils 
among false brethren. In zueariness and painfulness, in watchings often, 
in hunger and thirst, in fastings often." At how tnuch less expense 
might he lay " up to himself treasures in heaven ! " 

The Spectator, No. 624. 

Avarice ne stant nat oonly in lond ne catel \chattcls\ but somtyme in 
science [knowledge] and in glorie ; and in ez^ery nianere of outrageous 
thyng is avarice and coveitise. 

Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1. 18,986. 

T^ESPAIR to gain doth trafific oft for gaining ; 
^-^ And when great treasure is the meed proposed, 

Though death be adjunct, there 's no death supposed. 
Those that much covet are with gain so fond, 
For what they have not, that which they possess 



98 Shakespeare's morals. 

They scatter- and unloose it from their bond, 

And so, by hoping more, they have but less ; 

Or, gaining more, the profit of excess 
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain. 
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain. 

The aim of all is but to nurse the life 

With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age ; 

And in this aim there is such thwarting strife, 

That one for all, or all for one we gage ; 

As life for honour in fell battle's rage ; 

Honour for wealth ; and oft that wealth doth cost 
The death of all, and all together lost. 

So that in venturing ill we leave to be 

The things we are for that which we expect ; 

And this ambitious foul infirmity, 

In having much, torments us with defect 

Of that we have : so then we do neglect 

The thing we have ; and, all for want of wit. 
Make something nothing by augmenting it. 

Lucrece, 1. 131. 

The aged man that coffers-up his gold 
Is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits ; 
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold, 
But, like still-pining Tantalus he sits, 
And useless barns the harvest of his wits ; 
Having no other pleasure of his gain 
But torment that it cannot cure his pain. 



THE CURSE OF AVARICE. 99 

So then he hath it when he cannot use it/ 
And leaves it to be master'd by his young ; 
Who in their pride do presently abuse it : 
Their father was too weak, and they too strong, 
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long. 
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours 
Even in the moment that we call them ours. 

Lucrece, 1. 855. 

This avarice 

Sticks deeper, gi'ows with more pernicious root ^ 

Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been 

The sword of our slain kings. 

Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 84. 

See, sons, what things you are ! 
How quickly nature falls into revolt 
When gold becomes her object ! 
For this the foolish over-careful fathers 
Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, 
Their bones with industry ; 
For this they have engrossed and piled up 
The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold ; 
For this they have been thoughtful to invest 
Their sons with arts and martial exercises : 

1 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth 
abundance with increase.— .Efc/. v. 10. 

2 They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many 
foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. — 
I Tim. vi. 9. 



loo Shakespeare's morals. 

When, like the bee, culHng from every flower 

The virtuous sweets, 

Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey, 

We bring it to the hive, and, hke the bees. 

Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste 

Yield his engrossments to the ending father. 

Second Part of King Henry IV., Act iv. Sc. 5, I. 65. 

What is here ? gold ? . . . 
This yellow slave 

Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed. 
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves 
And give them title, knee and approbation 
With senators on the bench : this is it 
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again ; 
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores 
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices 
To the April day again. 

Timon of Athens, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. t^t^. 

There is thy gold ; worse poison to men's souls, 
Doing more murders in this loathsome world, 
Than these poor compounds that thou mayest not sell. 

Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 79. 



Ci^e peril of micfeeD ajsmation. 



/ know not any greater misfortune, that can happen to a young /cUo'lV 
at his first setting out in life, than his falling into low company. He 
that sinks to familiarity with persons miich below his own level, will be 
constantly weighed down by his base connections ; and, though he may 
easily plunge still lower, will find it almost impossible ever to rise again. 

The Connoisseur, No. 132. 

Those who lose such friends lose them to their joy. 
And they who have them for deliverance pray. ^ 

Sophocles, Fraginents, I. 741. 

THE crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire, 
And unperceived fly with the filth away ; 
But if the like the snow-white swan desire, 

The stain upon her silver down will stay.^ 

Lucrece, 1. 1009. 

1 O my soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine, 
honour, be not thou united. — Gen. xlix. 6. 

- Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes be not burned? Can 
one go upon hot coals, and his feet be not burned.'' — Prov. vi. 27. 



I02 Shakespeare's morals. 

There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, 
and is known to many in our land by the name of pitch ; 
this pitch, as ancient writers do report,^ doth defile ! so doth 
the company thou keepest. 

Fh-st Pai't of King Henry IV., Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 453. 

King John. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and 
earth 
Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal 
Witness against us to damnation ! 
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
Make deeds ill done ! ^ Had'st not thou been by, 
A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, 
Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame, 
This murder had not come into my mind : 
But taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect, 
Finding thee fit for bloody villany, 
Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger, 
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death ; 
And thou, to be endeared to a king, 
Made it no conscience to destroy a prince. 

Hubert. My lord, — 

Ki7ig John. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made a 
pause 
When I spake darkly what I purposed, 

1 He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith. — Ecclus. xiii. i. 

2 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two 
hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I 
coveted them, and took them. — Joshua vii. 21. 



THE PERIL OF WICKED ASSOCIATION. IO3 

Or tum'd an eye of doubt upon my face,- 

As bid me tell my tale in express words, 

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off, 

And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me : 

But thou didst understand me by my signs 

And didst in signs again parley with sin ; 

Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent. 

And consequently thy rude hand to act 

The deed which both our tongues held vile to name. 

King John, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 216. 

The love of wicked men converts to fear ; 
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both 
To worthy danger and deserved death. 

King Richard 11., Act v. Sc. i, 1. 66. 

Heaven has an end in all : yet, you that hear me, 

This from a dying man receive as certain : 

Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels 

Be sure you be not loose ; for those you make friends 

And give 3'our hearts to, when they once perceive 

The least rub in your fortunes, fall away 

Like water from ye,^ never found again 

But where they mean to sink ye. All good people, 

Pray for me ! I must now forsake ye : the last hour 

Of my long weary life is come upon me. 

Farewell : 

1 My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks 
they pass away. — Job vi. 15. 



104 Shakespeare's morals. 

And when you would say something that is sad, 
Speak how I fell. I have done ; and God forgive me ! 

King Henry VIII., Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 124. 

Well, Brutus, thou art noble ; yet, I see, 
Thy honourable metal may be wrought 
FroAi that it is disposed : therefore it is meet 
That noble minds keep ever with their likes ; 
For who so firm that cannot be seduced ? 

Julius Ccssar, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 312. 



pzxil of €>pportumtt^ 



WAen I ^ve made up my mind that I can^t afford to buy a tempting dog, 
T take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to me, and looked 
lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and inclination might be- 
come unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on my wisdoni there. 

Parson Irwine, in Adam Bede. 

The close pursuer'' s busy hands do plant 
Snares iti thy substance ; snares attend thy zvattt ; 
Snares in thy discredit ; snares in thy disgrace ; 
Snares in thy high estate ; sftares in thy base ; 
Snares in thy quiet ; snares in thy comt?iotion ; 
Snares in thy diet ; snares in thy devotion ; 
Snares above thy head, and snares beneath ; 
Snares in thy sickness ; snares in thy death. 

Francis Quarles, Etnblems. 

Three reasons occur to me for thinking bodily sins more curable than 
mental ones. . . , Bodily sins must be connected with certain times and 
places. Consequently, by a new arrangement of hours, and by abstaining, 
so far as may be, from the places which have ministered opporttinities to 
a bodily vice, a man may insotne degree disable himself from committing 
it. Guesses at Truth. 

UNRULY blasts wait on the tender spring ; 
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers ; 
The adder, hisses where the sweet birds sing; 
What virtue breeds iniquity devours : 



Io6 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

We have no good that we can say is ours, 

But ill-annexed Opportunity 

Or kills his life or else his quality. 
O Opportunity, thy guilt is great ! 
'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason : 
Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get ; 
Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season ; 
'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason ; 

And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, 

Sits sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.-^ . . . 

Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief! 
Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, 
Thy private feasting to a public fast ; 
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name ; 
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste ; 
Thy violent vanities can never last. 

How comes it then, vile Opportunity, 

Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee ? 
When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend, 
And bring him where his suit may be obtained ? 
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end. 
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chained ? 
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd ? 

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee ; 

But they ne'er meet with Opportunity. 
The patient dies while the physician sleeps ; 

' Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the 
wiles of the devil. — E^/i. vi. 1 1. 



PERIL OF OPPORTUNITY. IO7 

The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds ; 
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps ; 
Advice is sporting while infection breeds ; 
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds ; 

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages. 

Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages. 
When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee, 
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid : 
They buy thy help ; but Sin ne'er gives a fee. 
He gratis comes ; and thou art well appaid 

As well to hear as grant what he hath said 

Guilty thou art of murder and of theft, 
Guilty of perjury and subornation, 
Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift, 
Guilty of incest, that abomination ; 
An accessary by thine inclination 

To all sins past, and all that are to come, 

From the creation to the general doom. 

Lucrece, 1. 869. 



^elf^91nt)ulgence* 



Pious extasies are easier far 
Than virtuous deeds ; how gladly idleness, 
Concealing its true motive from itself. 
Would stand excused from virtuous deeds, and plead 
Its pious extasies instead. 

Lessing, Nathan the Wise, Act i. Sc. 2. 

Of all rituals and divine services and ordinances ever instituted for 
the worship of any god, this of Self-worship is the ritual 7nost faithfully 
observed. Thomas Carlyle, Essay on Goethe's Works. 

What is a man, 
If his chief good and market of his time 
Be but to sleep and feed ? a beast, no more. 
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and god-like reason 
To fust in us unused. Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 33. 

O gentlemen, the time of life is short ! 

To spend that shortness basely were too long. 

If life did ride upon a dial's point. 

Still ending at the arrival of an hour. 

First Part of King Henry IV., Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 82. 



SELF-INDULGENCE. IO9 

Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted ; 
Suffer them now, and they '11 o'ergrow the garden 
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry. 

Secojtd Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 31. 

Shall we serve heaven 

With less respect than we do minister 

To our gross selves ? 

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 85. 



a ^tmml f eaten, an actual J^elL 



Iwt7I simply express my strong belief that the point of self education 
which consists of teachijtg the mind to resist its desires and inclinations 
until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in 
things of natural philosophy, btct in every department of daily life. 

Michael Faraday, On the Education of the Jtidgment. 

THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame 
Is lust in action ; and till action, lust 
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame. 
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, 
Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight, 
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had 
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait 
On purpose laid to make the taker mad ; 
Mad in pursuit and in possession so ; 
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; 
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe ; ^ 
Before, a joy proposed ; behind, a dream. 

1 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin : and sin, when it is 
finished, bringeth forth death. — James i. 15. 



A SENSUAL HEAVEN, AN ACTUAL HELL. Ill 

All this the world well knows ; yet none ^ knows well 
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell."'^ 

Sonnet cxxix. 

Macbeth. Had I but died an hour before this chance, 

I had lived a blessed time ; for, from this instant, 

There 's nothing serious in mortality : 

All is but toys : renown and grace is dead ; 

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 

Is left this vault to brag of. 

Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 96. 

1 They are altogether become abominable ; there is none that doeth good, no 
not one. — Psalm xiv. 4. 

2 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. — Prov. 
xxxiii. 32. 



^nuv^ion of t^e Crut)^. 



Nothing can be said so absurd, that has not been said before by some 
of the philosophers. — Cicero, De Divi7tatione, ii. 58. 

Mark you this, Bassanio, 
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. 
An evil soul producing holy witness 
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, 
A goodly apple rotten at the heart : 
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath ! 

Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 98. 

Men may construe things after their fashion. 
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 

Julius Ccssar, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 34. 

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile : 
Filths savour but themselves.-^ 

ICing Lear, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 38. 

Take heed you dally not before your king ; 
Lest he that is the supreme King of kings 
Confound your hidden falsehood. 

King Richard III., Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 12. 

^ With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou 
wilt show thyself froward. — Psalm xviii. 26. 



jn 



j^^pocrijai^. 



Deceit is base, unfit for noble souls. 

Wherefore conceal thou nothing. Time that sees 

And heareth all things bringeth all to light. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 11. loo, 284. 

JVo man that reads the Evangelists, but must obsei-ue that our blessed 
Saviour does upon every occasion bend all his force and zeal to rebuke 
and correct the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Upon that subject he shozos a 
warmth which one meets with in tio other part of his sermons. 

Dr. William Wotton, in The Guardian, A"o. 93. 

This is some fellow, 
Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect 
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb 
Quite from his nature : he cannot flatter, he. 
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth ! 
An they will take it, so ; if not, he 's plain. 
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness 
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends 
Than twenty silly ducking observants 
That stretch their duties nicely. 

King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. loi. 



114 Shakespeare's morals. 

Who should be pitiful, if you be not? 
Or who should study to prefer a peace, 
If holy churchmen take delight in broils ? . . . . 
Fie, Uncle Beaufort ! I have heard you preach 
That malice was a great and grievous sin ; 
And will not you maintain the thing you teach, 
But prove a chief offender in the same ? 

First Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 109, 126. 

He who the sword of heaven will bear 
Should be as holy as severe ; 
Pattern in himself to know, 
Grace to stand, and virtue go ; 
More nor less to others paying 
Than by self-offences weighing. 
Shame to him whose cruel striking 
Kills for faults of his own liking ! 
Twice treble shame on Angelo, 
To weed my vice and let his grow ! 
O, what may man within him hide. 
Though angel on the outward side ! 

Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 275. 

o, 

Dissembling courtesy ! How fine this tyrant 
Can tickle where she wounds ! 

Cj>mbeline, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 84. 

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, 
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother. 



HYPOCRISY. - 115 

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, 

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ; 

Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, 

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 

And recks not his own rede. 

Ilamlet, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 471. 

When devils will the blackest sins put on. 
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.-^ 

Othello, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 357. 

Were they not mine ? 
Did they not sometime cry, ' All hail ! ' to me ? 
So Judas did to Christ.' 

King Richard IT., Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 168. 

Though some of you with Pilate wash your hands, 
Showing an outward pity ; yet you Pilates 
Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross. 
And water cannot wash away your sin. 

King Richard II., Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 239. 

Ever note, Lucilius, 
When love begins to sicken and decay. 
It useth an enforced ceremony. 
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith ; 
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, 

1 And no marvel ; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. — 
2 CV?r. xi. 14. 

2 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master, and kissed him. 
— Matt. xxvi. 49. 



ii6 Shakespeare's morals. 

Make gallant show and promise of their mettle : 

But when they should endure the bloody spur, 

They fall their crests, and, Uke deceitful jades, 

Sink in the trial. yuUus Casar, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 19. 

Love 's not love 
When it is mingled with regards that stand 
Aloof from the entire point. 

A'htg Lear, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 241. 

As we do turn our backs 
From our companion thrown into his grave. 
So his familiars to his buried fortunes 
Slink all away, leave their false vows with him, 
Like empty purses prick'd ; and his poor self, 
A dedicated beggar to the air, 
With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty, 
Walks, like contempt, alone. 

Timon of Athens, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 8. 



€i)t iffoll^ of anticipating Crouble. 



What profit is there from our many goods, 

If care, with evil thoughts, 
Is still the nurse of fair prosperity ? ^ 

Sophocles, Fragments, 718. 

TO fly the boar before the boar pursues, 
Were to incense the boar to follow us 
And make pursuit where he did mean no chase. 

A'ing Richard III., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 28. 

Our day is gone ; 
Clouds, dews, and dangers come ; our deeds are done ! . . . 
Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. 
O hateful error, melancholy's child, 
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 
The things that are not ? O error, soon conceived, 
Thou never comest unto a happy birth, 
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee ! 

yulius Ccesar, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 63. 

1 Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. — Matt. vi. 34. 



Il8 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Qjteefi Isabella. I know no cause 

Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, 
Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest 
As my sweet Richard : yet again, methinks, 
Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, ' 
Is coming towards me, and my inward soul 

With nothing trembles 

'Tis in reversion that I do possess ; 

But what it is, that is not yet known ; what 

I cannot name ; 'tis nameless woe, I wot 

Sir John Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty 
shadows. 
Which show like grief itself, but is not so ; 
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears, 
Divides one thing entire to many objects ; 
Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon 
Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry 
Distinguish form. Kmg Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 6. 

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes, 
But presently prevent the ways to wail. 
To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength. 
Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe. 
And so your follies fight against yourself. 
Fear, and be slain ; no worse can come to fight : 
And fight and die is death destroying death ; 
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath. 

King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 178. 



THE FOLLY OF ANTICIPATING TROUBLE. 

Antonio, Salarino, Salanio, and Gratiano. 

Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad : 
It wearies me ; you say it wearies you ; 
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, 
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is bom, 
I am to leam ; 

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 
That I have much ado to know myself. 

Salar. Your mind is tossing. on the ocean ; 
There, where your argosies with portly sail. 
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, 
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea. 
Do overpeer the petty traffickers. 
That curtsy to them, do them reverence. 
As they fly by them with their woven wings. 

Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, 
The better part of my affections would 
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still 
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind. 
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads ; 
And every object that might make me fear 
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt 
Would make me sad. 

Salar. My wind cooling my broth 

Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 
What harm a wind too great at sea might do. 
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run. 



119 



I20 Shakespeare's morals. 

But I should think of shallows and of flats, 

And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, 

Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs 

To kiss her burial. Should I go to church 

And see the holy edifice of stone, 

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, 

Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, 

Would scatter all her spices on the stream, 

Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks, 

And, in a word, but even now worth this. 

And now worth nothing ? Shall I have the thought 

To think on this, and shall I lack the thought 

That such a thing bechanced would make me sad ? 

13ut tell not me ; I know, Antonio 

Is sad to think upon his merchandise 

Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio ; 
You have too much respect upon the world : 
They lose it tliat do buy it with much care : 
Believe me, you are marvellously changed. 

Ant, I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano ; 

A stage where every man must play a part, 

And mine a sad one. 

The Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. i. 

QtiEEN Margaret's Address. 

(jreat lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, 
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. • 
What thougli the mast be now blown overboard. 



THE FOLLY OF ANTICIPATING TROUBLE. 

The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost, 

And half our sailors swallowed in the flood ? 

Yet lives our pilot still : is 't meet that he 

Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad, 

With tearful eyes add water to the sea, 

And give more strength to that which hath too much ; 

Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock. 

Which industry and courage might have sav'd ? 

Ah, what a shame ! ah, what a fault were this ! 

Say Warwick was our anchor ; what of that ? 

And Montague our .topmast ; what of him ? 

Our slaughtered friends the tackles ; what of these ? 

Why, is not Oxford, here, another anchor? 

And Somerset another goodly mast ? 

The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings ? 

And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I 

For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge ? 

We will not from the helm to sit and weep ; 

But keep our course, though the rough wind say no, 

From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck. 

As good to chide the waves as speak them fair. 

And what is Edward but a ruthless sea ? 

What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit ? 

And Richard but a ragged fatal rock ? 

All these the enemies to our poor bark. 

Say you can swim, — alas, 'tis but a while ! 

Tread on the sand, — why there you quickly sink ; 

Bestride the rock, — the tide will wash you off, 



122 Shakespeare's morals. 

Or else you famish ; that 's a threefold death. 

This speak I, lords, to let you understand, 

If case some one of you would fly from us, 

That there 's no hoped-for mercy with the brothers 

More than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks. 

Why, courage, then ! what cannot be avoided 

'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear. 

Third Part of Kmg Henry VI., Act v. Sc. 4. 



/ 1-3 



giuDging €>t]^er?f. 



I pray thee, then, wear not one mood alone 

That what thou say'st is right, and naught but that ; 

For he who thinks that he alone is wise, 

His mind and speech above what others have. 

Such men when searched are mostly empty found, 

Sophocles, Antigone, 705. 

OTHOU that judgest all things, stay my thoughts, 
My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul 
Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life ! 
If my suspect be false, forgive me, God, 
For judgment only doth belong to thee.^ 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 136. 

Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 31. 

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. — Matt. vii. i. 



€]^e mt of tt)z Congue* 



IV/ijy tellest thou thy tale of many words ? 
Superfluous speech is irksome everywhere. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 103. 

Much wisdom often goes with fewest words. '^ 
A man whose whole delight is still to talk 
Knows not how. tnuch he vexes all his friends. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 89. 

Some folk's tongues are like the clock, an^ run on strickin', not to tell 
you the time 0'' the day, but because there 'j sum/nat wrong /' their oivn 
inside. GEORGE Eliot, Ada/n Bede. 

What 's amiss, 
May it be gently heard : when we debate 
Our trivial difference loud, we do commit 
Murder in healing wounds : then, .... 
Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms. 
Nor curstness grow to the matter.'^ 

Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 19. 

1 In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin : but he that refraineth 
his lips is wise. — Prov. ;c. 19. 

2 A soft answer tumeth away wrath : but grievous words stir up anger. 
— Prov. XV. I . 



THE USE OF THE TONGUE. I 25 

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice ; ^ 

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 68. 

Be check'd for silence, 
But never tax'd for speech. 

AlVs Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 76. 

One doth not know 
How much an ill word may empoison liking. 

Much Ado about N'othing, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 85. 

Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion, 

I with great truth catch mere simplicity ; 

Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns, 

With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare. 

Fear not my truth : the moral of my wit 

Is * plain and true ; ' there 's all the reach of it. 

Troibcs and Cressida, Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 105. 

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, 
Misprising what they look on, and her wit 
Values itself so highly that to her 
All matter else seems weak : she cannot love, 
Nor take no shape nor project of affection, 
She is so self-endeared. .... 

I never yet saw man. 
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured, 

1 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let eveiy man be swift to hear, slow to 
speak, slow to wrath. — James i. 19. 



126 Shakespeare's morals. 

But she would spell him backward : if fair-faced, 

She would swear the gentleman should be her sister ; 

If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antick 

Made a foul blot ; if tall, a lance ill-headed ; 

If low, an agate very vilely cut ; 

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds ; 

If silent, why, a block moved with none. 

So turns she every man the wrong side out 

And never gives to truth and virtue that 

Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. 

Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 51. 



^tuptai^it. 



The tongue is held in honor by such men 
As reckon words of more account than deeds. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 209. 

Lay thy finger on thy lips ! 
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,^ 
If that the praised himself bring the praise forth :" 
But what the repining enemy commends, 
That breath fame blows ; that praise, sole pure, transcends.^ 
Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 240. 

We wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our 
deservings, when of ourselves we publish them. 

Alps Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 5. 

He that is proud, eats up himself: pride is his own glass, 
his own trumpet, his own chronicle ; and whatever praises 
itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise. 

Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 164. 

1 For men to search their own glory is not glory. — Prov. xxv. 27. 

2 Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth ; a stranger and 
not thine own lips. — Prov. xxvii. 2. 



fal^itV in tl^e cEJarb of Crutl^. 



^ire long by the appointed curse of heaven, a mattes intdlect ceases to be 
capable of distinguishing truth, when he permits himself to deal in speak- 
ing or acting what is false. Thomas Carlyle. 



o 



WHAT authority and show of truth 
Can cunning sin cover itself withal ! 

Much Ado aboitt Nothing, Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 36. 



So may the outward shows be least themselves : 
The world is still deceived with ornament. 
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt 
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, 
Obscures the show of evil ? In religion, 
What damned error, but some sober brow 
Will bless it and approve it with a text, 
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ? 
There is no vice so simple but assumes 
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts : 
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false 
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins 
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, 
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk; 



FALSITY IN THE GARB OF TRUTH. 1 29 

And these assume but valour's excrement 

To render them redoubted ! Look on beauty, 

And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight ; 

Which therein works a miracle in nature, 

Making them lightest that wear most of it : 

So are those crisped snaky golden locks 

Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, 

Upon supposed fairness, often known 

To be the dowry of a second head, 

The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. 

Thus ornament is but the guiled shore 

To a most dangerous sea ; the beauteous -scarf 

Veiling an Indian beauty ; in a word, 

The seeming truth which cunning times put on 

To entrap the wisest. 

T/ie Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 73. 



%nconmncv ot momiv !ffrtenti0]^(p0. 



In many a turning of the wheel of God 

My fate revolves and changes all its mood ; 

E'en as the mooji's face never keepeth still 

For but two nights in one position fixed, 

But from its hiding-place first comes as new, 

With brightening face, and thenceforth waxethfull ; 

And when it gains its noblest phase of all. 

Wanes off again and comes to nothingness. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1, 713. 

O WORLD, thy slippery turns ! Friends now fast sworn, 
Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, 
Whose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise. 
Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love 
Unseparable, shall within this hour. 
On a dissension of a doit, break out 
To bitterest enmity : so, fellest foes. 
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep 
To take the one the other, by some chance, 
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends 
And interjoin their issues. So with me : 
My birth-place hate I, and my love 's upon 



INCONSTANCY OF WORLDLY FRIENDSHIPS. 131 

This enemy town. I '11 enter : if he slay me, 

He does fair justice ; if he give me way 

I '11 do his country service. 

Coriolanus, Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 12. 



Injurious Hermia ! most ungrateful maid ! 

Have you conspired, have you with these contrived 

To bait me with this foul derision ? 

Is all the counsel that we two have shared, 

The sister's vows, the hours that we have spent, 

When we have chid the hasty-footed time 

For parting us, — O, is it all forgot ? 

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence? 

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, 

Have with our needles created both one flower, 

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, 

Both warbling of one song, both in one key, 

As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds. 

Had been incorporate. So we grew together. 

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 

But yet an union in partition ; 

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ; 

So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart ; 

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, 

Due but to one and crowned with one crest. 

And will you rent our ancient love asunder. 

To join with men in scorning your poor friend ? 

It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly : 



132 Shakespeare's morals. 

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it, 
Though I alone do feel the injury. 

A Midsiimjjier-Nighfs Dream, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 195. 

'Tis not ten years gone 

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends, 

Did feast together, and in two years after 

Were they at wars : it is but eight years since 

This Percy was the man nearest my soul, 

Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs 

And laid his love and life under my foot. 

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard 

Gave him defiance. But which of you was by — 

You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember — 

\_To War-wicki 

When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears. 
Then check'd and rated by Northumberland, 
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy? 
' Northumberland, thou ladder by the which 
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne ; ' 
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent. 
But that necessity so bow'd the state 
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss : 
' The time shall come,' thus did he follow it, 
' The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, 
Shall break into corruption : ' so went on. 
Foretelling this same time's condition 
And the division of our amity. 

Second Part of King Henry IV., Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 57. 



INCONSTANCY OF WORLDLY FRIENDSHIPS. 1 33 

Duke Senior. Come, shall we go and kill us venison ? 
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, 
Being native burghers of this desert city. 
Should in their own confines with forked heads 
Have their round haunches gored. 

First Lord. Indeed, my lord, 

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that, 
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp 
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. 
To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself 
Did steal behind him as he lay along 
Under an oak whose antique root peeps out 
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood : 
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, 
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt. 
Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord. 
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans 
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat 
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears 
Coursed one another down his innocent nose 
In piteous chase ; and thus the hairy fool, 
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, 
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, 
Augmenting it with tears. 

Duke S. But what said Jaques ? 

Did he not moralize this spectacle ? 

First Lord. O, yes, into a thousand similes. 
First, for his weeping into the needless stream ; 



134 Shakespeare's morals. 

' Poor deer,' quoth he ' thou makest a testament 

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more 

To that which had too much : ' then, being there alone, 

Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends, 

' 'Tis right : ' quoth he ' thus misery doth part 

The flux of company : ' anon a careless herd. 

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him 

And never stays to greet him ; 'Ay,' quoth Jaques, 

' Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 

'Tis just the fashion : wherefore do you look 

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ? ' " 

As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 21. 



Constant frienti^liip. 



Tnlly was the first who observed, that friendship improves happiness 
and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing our grief, a 
thought in which he hath been follozved by all the essayers upon friend- 
shit) that have writteft since his time. 

The Spectator, No. 68. 

A generous friendship no cold medium knows. 
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows. 

Pope; The Iliad, Book ix. 1. 725. 

Salarhio. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth. 
I saw Bassanio and Antonio part : 
Bassanio told him he would make some speed 
Of his return : he answer'd, ' Do not so ; 
Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio, 
But stay the very riping of the time ; 
And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me, 
Let it not enter in your mind of love : 
Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts 
To courtship and such fair ostents of love 
As shall conveniently become you there : ' 
And even there, his eye being big with tears. 
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, 



136 Shakespeare's mor.\ls. 

And with affection wondrous sensible 

He wrung Bassanio's hand ; and so they parted. 

Portia \_Bassanio readifig a letter]. There are some shrewd 
contents in yon same paper 
That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek : 
Some dear friend dead ; else nothing in the world 
Could turn so much the constitution 
Of any constant man. What, worse and worse ! 
With leave, Bassanio ; I am half yourself, 
And I must freely have the half of any thing 
That this same paper brings you. 

Bassanio. O, sweet Portia, 

Here are a few of the unpleasantest words 
That ever blotted paper ! Gentle lady, 
When I did first impart my love to you, 
I freely told you, all the wealth I had 
Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman ; 
And then I told you true : and yet, dear lady, 
Rating myself at nothing, you shall see 
How much I was a braggart. When I told you 
My state was nothing, I should then have told you 
That I was worse than nothing ; for, indeed, 
I have engaged myself to a dear friend, 
Engaged my friend to his mere enemy. 
To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady ; 
The paper as the body of my friend. 
And every word in it a gaping wound. 



CONSTANT FRIENDSHIP, I37 

Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio ? 
Have all his ventures fail'd ? What, not one hit ? 
From Tripolis, from Mexico and England, 
From Lisbon, Barbary, and India? 
And not one vessel 'scape the dreadful touch 
Of merchant-marring rocks ? 

Salerio. Not one, my lord. 

Besides, it should appear, that if he had 
The present money to discharge the Jew, 
He would not take it. Never did I know 
A creature, that did bear the shape of man, 
So keen and greedy to confound a man : 
He plies the duke at morning and at night, 
And doth impeach the freedom of the state, 
If they deny him justice : twenty merchants. 
The duke himself, and the magnificoes 
Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him ; 
But none can drive him from the envious plea 
Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond. 

yesslca. When I was with him I have heard him swear 
To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen. 
That he would rather have Antonio's flesh 
Than twenty times the value of the sum 
That he did owe him : and I know, my lord. 
If law, authority, and power deny not. 
It will go hard with poor Antonio. 

For. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble ? 



138 Shakespeare's morals. 

Bass. The dearest friend to me/ the kindest man, 
The best-condition 'd and unwearied spirit 
In doing courtesies, and one in whom 
The ancient Roman honour more appears 
Than any that draws breath in Italy. 

For. What sum owes he the Jew ? 

Bass. For me three thousand ducats. 

Par. What, no more ? 

Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond ; 
Double six thousand, and then treble that. 
Before a friend of this description 
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault. 

Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 8, 1. 35; Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 246. 

1 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends. — John xv. 13. 



Calumny ann j^etraction. 



They who are too fair-spoken before you are likely to be foul-spoken be- 
hind you. If yori would keep clear of the one extreme, keep clear of both. 
The rule is a very simple one : never find fault with anybody except to 
himself; never praise anybody except to others- 

Guesses at Truth. 

Men that make 
Envy and crooked malice nourishment 
Dare bite the best. 

King Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 43. 

Calumny will sear virtue itself. 

The Winter's Tale, Act ii. Sc. 1, 1. 73. 

No, 'tis slander, 
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue 
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath 
Rides on the posting winds and doth belie 
All comers of the world : kings, queens, and states. 
Maids, matrons ; nay, the secrets of the grave, 
Tills viperous slander enters. 

Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 35. 



140 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

No might nor greatness in mortality 
Can censure 'scape ; back-wounding calumny 
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong 
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue ? 

Meastwe for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 196. 

Rumour is a pipe 
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, 
And of so easy and so plain a stop 
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, 
The still-discordant wavering multitude, 
Can play upon it. 

Second Part of Henry IV., Induction, 1. 15. 

If lam 
Traduced by ignorant tongues, which neither know 
My faculties nor person, yet will be 
The chronicles of my doing, let me say 
'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake 
That virtue must go through. We must not stint 
Our necessary actions, in the fear 
To cope malicious censurers. 

King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 71. 

I do not like ' But yet,' it does allay 
The good precedence ; fie upon ' But yet ' ! 
* But yet ' is as a gaoler to bring forth 
Some monstrous malefactor. 

Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 5, I. 50. 



CALUMNY AND DETRACTION. I41 

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls : 
Who steals my purse steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing ; 
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands ; 
But he that filches firom me my good name 
Robs me of that which not enriches him 
And makes me poor indeed. 

Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 155. 



feignen l^rater. 



Prayers 
Are daughters of Almighty yupiter, — 
Lame, wrinkled, and squint-eyed, — that painfully 
Follow misfortune's steps ; but strong of limb 
And swift of foot misfortune is, and, far 
Outstripping all, comes first to every land. 
And there wreaks evil on mankind, which prayers 
Do afterwards redress. Whoe'er receives 
yove^s daughters reverently when they approach. 
Him willingly they aid, and to his suit 
They listen. Whosoever puts them by 
With obstinate denial, they appeal 
To yove, the son of Saturn, and entreat 
That he will cause misfortune to attend 
The offender'' s way in life, that he in turn 
May suffer evil and be punished thus. 

Homer''s Iliad, trattslated by Wm. Cullen Bryant. 

THAT high All-Seer that I dallied with 
Hath tum'd my feigned prayer on my head 
And given in earnest what I begged in jest. 
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men 
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms. 

King Richard III., Act v. Sc. i, 1. 20. 



FEIGNED PRAYER. 1 43 

When I would pray and think, I think and pray 

To several subjects . . . Heaven in my mouth, 

As if I did but only chew his name ; 

And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil 

Of my conception. Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. i. 

Ah, countrymen ! if when you make your prayers, 
God should be so obdurate as yourselves, 
How would it fare with your departed souls ? 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iv. Sc. 7, 1. 121. 

The King. O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven ; 
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't, 
A brother's murder. Pray can I not. 
Though inclination be as sharp as will : 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent : 
And, like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand 
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood. 
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 
To wash it white as snow ? Whereto serves mercy 
But to confront the visage of offence ? 
And what 's in prayer but this two-fold force. 
To be forestalled ere we come to fall, 
Or pardon'd being down ? Then I '11 look up ; 
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer 
Can serve my turn ? ' Forgive me my foul murder ' ? 



144 SHAKESPEARE S MORALS. 

That cannot be : since I am still possess'd 

Of those effects for which I did the murder, 

My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. 

May one be pardon'd and retain the offence ? 

In the corrupted currents of this world 

Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice. 

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself 

Buys out the law : but 'tis not so above ; 

There is no shuffling, there the action lies 

In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd, 

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 

To give in evidence. What then ? what rests ? 

Try what repentance can : what can it not ? 

Yet what can it when one can not repent ? 

O wretched state ! O bosom black as death ! 

O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, 

Art more engaged ! Help, angels ! Make assay ! 

Bow, stubborn knees ; and, heart with strings of steel, 

Be soft as sinews of the new-bom babe ! 

All may be well. [^Retires and kneels. 

King. \^Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below ; 
Words without thoughts* never to heaven go. 

Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 3, ]. 36. 

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow ; 
But vows to every purpose must not hold. 

Troilus and Cressida, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 23. 



pvant* 



What may be taught I learn ; what may be found 
That I seek for ; what must come by prayer. 
For that I asked the Gods. 

Sophocles, Fragmettts, 1. 723. 

Prayer is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the spirit of gentle- 
ness and dove-like simplicity ; an imitation of the holy Jesus, whose 
spirit is meek, up to the greatness of the biggest example; and a con- 
formity to God, whose anger is always just, and marches slowly, and is 
without transportation [passion], and ofteti hindered, and never hasty, 
and is full of mercy ; prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our 
thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of 
our cares, and the calm of our tempest ; prayer is the issue cf a quiet 
mind, of untroubled thoughts ; it is the daughter of charity, and the 
sister of meekness. 

Jeremy Taylor. 

I MAKE you both protectors of this land, 
While I myself will lead a private life 
And in devotion spend my latter days, 
To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise. 

Third Part of King Henry VI., Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. 41. 



146 Shakespeare's morals. 

Heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates, 
To entertain my vows of thanks and praise ! 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iv. Sc. 9, 1. 13. 

God's goodness hath been great to thee ; 
Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass. 
But still remember what the Lord hath done. 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 85. 

Prayer of Henry V. 

God of battles ! steel my soldiers' hearts ; 
Possess them not with fear ; take from them now 
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers 
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord, 
O, not to day, think not upon the fault 

My father made in compassing the crown ! 

1 Richard's body have interred new ; 

And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears 
Than from it issued forced drops of blood : 
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay. 
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up 
Toward heaven, to pardon blood ; and I have built 
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests 
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do ; 
Though all that I can do is nothing worth. 
Since that my penitence comes after all. 
Imploring pardon. 

King Henry V., Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 306. 



PRAYER. 147 

We have now no thought in us but France, 
Save those to God, that run before our business. 

King Henry V., Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 302. 

My ending is despair. 
Unless I be reheved by prayer, 
Which pierces so that it assaults 
Mercy itself and frees all faults. 

The Tempest, EPILOGUE, 1. 15.. 

Gentle nurse, 
I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night ; 
For I have need of many orisons 
To move the heavens to smile upon my state. 
Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin. 

Romeo and Juliet, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. i. 

It is religion that doth make vows kept. 

King John, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 279. 



J^e^spamng ^orrotu. 



The mightiest and the ^oisest in their minds 

Thou may'st see like to him who standeth here. 

Giving good counsel to a man distressed ; 

But when God's will shall send the scourge on one 

Who lived till then as fortune's favorite. 

All his fine phrases vanish utterly. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 14. 

Leonato and Antonio. 

A7it. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself ; 
And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief 
Against yourself 

Leon. I pray thee, cease thy counsel, 

Which falls into mine ears as profitless 
As water in a sieve : give not me counsel ; 
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear 
But such a one whose Avrongs do suit with mine. 
Bring me a father that so loved his child, 
Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd hke mine, 
And bid him speak of patience ; 
Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine 



DESPAIRING SORROW. 1 49 

And let it answer every strain for strain. 

As thus for thus and such a grief for such, 

In every hneament, branch, shape, and form : 

If such a one will smile and stroke his beard, 

Bid sorrow wag, cry ' hem ! ' when he should groan, 

Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk 

With candle-wasters ; bring him yet to me, 

And I of him will gather patience. 

But there is no such man : for, brother, men 

Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief 

Which they themselves not feel ; but, tasting it, 

Their counsel turns to passion, which before 

Would give preceptial medicine to rage, 

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, 

Charm ache with air and agony with words : 

No, no ; 'tis all men's office to speak patience 

To those that vmng under the load of sorrow, 

But no man's virtue nor sufficiency 

To be so moral when he shall endure 

The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel : 

My griefs cry louder than advertisement. 

Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ. 

Leon. I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood ; 
For there was never yet philosopher 
That could endure the toothache patiently, 
However they have writ the style of gods 
And made a pish at chance and sufferance. 

Much Ado about Nothing, Act v. Sc. i, 1. i. 



150 Shakespeare's morals. 

Constance \_mother of Arthur, after hearing of a peace on 
terms which would destroy all hope of her son's securing 
the crown\ Gone to be married ? Gone to swear a peace ? 

False blood to false blood join'd ! gone to be friends ! 

Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces ? 

It is not so ; thou hast misspoke, misheard ; 

Be well advised, tell o'er thy tale again : 

It cannot be ; thou dost but say 'tis so : 

I trust I may not trust thee ; for thy word 

Is but the vain breath of a common man : 

Believe me, I do not believe thee, man ; 

I have a king's oath to the contrary. 

Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me, 

For I am sick and capable of fears, 

Oppress'd with wrongs and therefore full of fears, 

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears, 

A woman, naturally born to fears ; 

And though thou now confess thou didst but jest, 

With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce, 

But they will quake and tremble all this day. 

What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head ? 

Why dost thou look so sadly on my son ? 

What means that hand upon that breast of thine ? 

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum. 

Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds ? 

Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words ? 

Then speak again ; not all thy former tale, 

But this one word, whether thy tale be true. 



DESPAIRING SORROW, 151 

Salisbury. As true as I believe you think them false 
That give you cause to prove my saying true. 

Const. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow, 
Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die, 
And let belief and life encounter so 
As doth the fury of two desperate men 
Which in the very meeting fall and die. 
Lewis marry Blanch ! O boy, then where art thou ? 
France friend with England, what becomes of me ? 
Fellow, be gone : I cannot brook thy sight : 
This news hath made thee a most ugly man. . . . 

Arthur. I do beseech you, madam, be content. 

Const. If thou, that bid'st me be content, wert grim, 
Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, 
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, 
Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks, 
I would not care, I then would be content. 
For then I should not love thee, no, nor thou 
Become thy great birth nor deserve a crown. 
But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy. 
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great : 
Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast 
And with the half-blown rose. But Fortune, O, 
She is corrupted, changed and won from thee ! . . . 
Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjured kings ! 
A widow cries ; be husband to me, heavens ! 
Let not the hours of tlais ungodly day 



152 Shakespeare's morals. 

Wear out the day in peace ; but, ere sunset. 
Set armed discord 'twixt these perjured kings ! 
Hear me, O, hear me ! . . . 

King Philip. Patience, good lady : Comfort, gentle Con- 
stance. 

Constance. No, I defy all counsel, all redress, 
But that which ends all counsel, true redress. 
Death, death ; O, amiable, lovely death ! . . . 

King Philip. O, fair affliction, peace ! 

Constance. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry. 
O ! that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth ; 
Then with. a passion I would shake the world. 
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy 
Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, 
Which scorns a widow's invocation. 

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say 

That we shall see and know our friends in heaven : 

If that be true, 1 shall see my boy again ; 

For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, 

To him that did but yesterday suspire, 

There was not such a gracious creature born. 

But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud 

And chase the native beauty from his cheek 

And he will look as hollow as a ghost, 

As dim and meagre as an ague's fit, 

And so he '11 die ; and, rising so again. 

When I shall meet him in the court of heaven 



DESPAIRING SORROW. 



153 



I shall not know him : therefore never, never 
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. 

Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
Stuffs out liis vacant garments with his form ; 
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? 
O Lord ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! 
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure ! 

Ki7ig John, Act iii. Sc. I, 1. i ; Sc. 4, 1. 22. 



J^ungenng for Spiritual iffoon. 



" Give me the interior beauties of the soul" Socrates. 

It cannot be too often repeated, where it continues still unknown or for- 
gotten, that man has a soul as certainly as he has a body ; nay, much 
more certainly ; that properly it is the course of his unseen, spiritual life 
which i7iforins and rides his external visible, life, rather than receives 
rule from it; in which spiritual life, indeed, and )iot in any outward 
action or condition arising from it, the true secret of his history lies, and 

is to be sought after and indefinitely approached. 

Thomas Carlyle. 

POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 
Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array, 
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, 
Painting thy outward wall so costly gay? 
Why so large cost, having so short a lease. 
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? 
Shall worms inheritors of this excess, 
Eat up thy charge ? is this thy body's end ? 
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,^ 

1 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection : kst that by any 
means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. — i Cor. 
ix. 27. 



HUNGERING FOR SPIRITUAL FOOD. 1 55 

And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; 

Buy ' terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 

Within be fed, without be rich no more : 

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, 
And Death once dead, there 's no more dying then.'^ 

Sonnet, cxlvi. 

1 Buy the truth, and sell it not ; also wisdom, and instruction, and under- 
standing. — Prov. xxiii. 23. 

2 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. — i Cor. xv. 26. 



Mpmtantz. 



Think thou on this, my son : To err, indeed. 

Is common unto all, but having erred. 

He is no longer reckless or tmblest. 

Who, having fallen into evil, seeks 

For healitig, nor contiiiues still unmoved. 

Sophocles, Antigone, 1. 1023. 

The faithful knight now grew in little space. 
By hearing her and by her sister'' s lore. 
To such perfection of all hevenly grace. 
That wretched world he ganfor to abhore. 
And mortal life gan loath as thing forlore, 
Greeved with remembrance of his wicked wayes, 
And pricked with atiguish of his sinnes so sore. 
That he desired to end his wretched dayes ; 
So micch the dart of sinfull guilt the soule dismayes. 
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, Book i., canto 10, stanza 22. 

Mother, for love of grace, 
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul . . . 
Confess yourself to heaven ; 
Repent what 's past ; avoid what is to come ; 
And do not spread the compost on the weeds, 
To make them ranker. Hatnlet, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 145. 



REPENTANCE, I57 

yuliet. I do confess it, and repent it, father, 

Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter : but lest you do repent, 
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame. 
Which sorrow is ahvays towards ourselves, not heaven, 
Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it, 
But as we stand in fear, — 

Jul. I do repent me, as it is an evil. 
And take the shame with joy, 

Duke. There rest.^ 

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 29. 

Oftentimes excusing of a fault 
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, 
As patches set upon a little breach 
Discredit more in hiding of the fault 
Than did the fault before it was so patch'd. 

King John, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 30. 

Very frankly he confess'd his treasons, 
Implored your highness' pardon and set forth 
A deep repentance : nothing in his life 
Became him like the leaving it ; he died 
As one that had been studied in his death 
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,^ 
As 'twere a careless trifle. Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 4, 1.5. 

1 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of : 
but the sorrow of the world worketh death. — 2 Cor. vii. 10. 
* Owned. 



Conterjston* 



Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word by whom 
light as well as immortality was brought into the world, which did 7tot 
expand the intellect while it purified the heart ; which did not multiply 
the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified 
those of the desires and passions. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

The new Life of Henry the Fifth. 

Archbishop of Canterbury. The king is full of grace and 
fair regard. 

Bishop of Ely. And a true lover of the holy church. 

Carit. The courses of his youth promised it not. 
The breath no sooner left his father's body, 
But that his wildness, mortified in him, 
Seem'd to die too ; yea, at that very moment 
Consideration, like an angel, came 
And whipped the offending Adam out of him. 
Leaving his body as a paradise. 
To envelope and contain celestial spirits. 
Never was such a sudden scholar made ; 
Never came reformation in a flood. 
With such a heady current, scouring faults ; 



CONVERSION. 159 

Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness 

So soon did lose his seat and all at once 

As in this king. 

Ely. We are blessed in the change. 

Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, 
And all-admiring with an inward wish 
You would desire the king were made a prelate. 

King Henry V., Act i. Sc. i, 1. 22. 

'Twas I ; but 'tis not I ; I do not shame 
To tell you what I was, since my conversion 
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. 

As You Like It, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 136. 



'Beauty ann ^trengtl^ Cran^itorr* 



O, race of mortal men oppressed with care ! 
What nothings are we, like to shadows vain^ 
Cumbering the ground and wandering to and fro ! 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 682. 

"IT 7HEN I do count the clock that tells the time, 

' ' And see the brave day sunk in hideous night ; 
When I behold the violet past prime, 
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white ; 
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves 
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, 
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves 
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, 
Then of thy beauty do I question make. 
That thou among the wastes of time must go, 
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake. 
And die as fast as they see others grow. . . . 
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 
So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 
Each changing place with that which goes before. 
In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 

1 My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass. — 
Psalm cii. 11. 



BEAUTY AND STRENGTH TRANSITORY. l6l 

Nativity, once in the main of light, 

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, 

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight 

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. 

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth 

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, 

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth. 

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. 

Sonnet, xii. Ix. 

Kind keepers of my weak decaying age, 
Let dying Mortimer here rest himself. 
Even like a man new haled from the rack, 
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment ; 
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death, 
Nestor-like aged in an age of care, 
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer. 
These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent, 
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent ; 
Weak shoulders, overborne with burthening grief, 
And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine 
That droops his sapless branches to the ground : 
Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb. 
Unable to support this lump of clay. 
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave. 

First Part of King Henry VI., Act ii. Sc. 5, 1. i. 

Death lies on her like an untimely frost 
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. 

Rotneo and Juliet, Act iv. Sc. 5, 1. 28. 



€]^e Beal mott}) of istantv* 



Ye tradeful mercka7its, that with weary toile 

Do seek most pretious things to make your game ; 

And both the Indias of their treasure spoile ; 

What ?ieedeth you to seeke sofarre in vaine ? 

For loe ! my love doth in her sel/e containe 

All this world's riches that inay farre be found; 

If saphyres, loe I her eies be saphyres plat7ie ; 

If rubies, loe! her lips be rubies sou7id ; 

Ifpearles, her teeth be pearles, both pure and round ; 

If ivorie, her forehead yvory weene ; 

If gold, her locks are f nest gold on ground; 

If silver, her f aire hands are silver sheene: 
But that which fairest is, but few behold. 
Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold. 

Edmund Spenser, Sonnet, xv. 

' Tis only in God's garden ' 7?ien may reap 
True joy and blessing. 

Sophocles, Fragmetits, 1. 298. 

t~^ HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
^^ By that sweet ornament which truth doth give ! 
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 

1 How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! As the 
valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the rivers' side, as the trees of lign 
aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. — 
Numbers xxiv. 5, 6, 



THE REAL WORTH OF BEAUTY. 1 63 

For that sweet odour which doth in it live. 

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye 

As the perfumed tincture of the roses, 

Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly 

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses : 

But, for their virtue only is their show. 

They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, 

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ; 

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made : 
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth. 
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth. 

Sonnet, liv. 

In nature there 's no blemish but the mind ; 
None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind : 
Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil 
Are empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil. 

Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 401. 



Cl^e ^nmhilitv ot €an))lv i^appinejSjs. 



C/nto gods alone 
Nor age can come, nor destined hour of death. 
All else the almighty rider. Time, sweeps on. 
Earth^s strength shall wither, wither strength of limb. 
And trust decays and mistrust grows apace; ^ 
And the same spirit lasts not among them 

That once were friends, nor joineth state with state. 

To these at once, to those in after years, 

Sweet things turn bitter, then turn sweet again. 

Sophocles, CEdipus at Colonos, 1. 607. 

Then was I as a tree 

Whose boughs did bend with fruit : but in one night 

A storm or robbery, call it what you will, 

Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves. 

And left me bare to weather. 

Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 60. 

There 's nothing in this world can make me joy : 
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale 
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man ; 

' Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not : he is like the beasts that 
perish. — Psalm xlix. 12. 



THE INSTABILITY OF EARTHLY HAPPINESS. 1 65 

And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste, 
That it yields nought but shame and bitterness. 

King yohn, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 107. 

I have lived long enough : my way of Hfe 
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf; 
And that which should accompany old age, 
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
I must not look to have : but, in their stead, 
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, 
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. 

Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 22. 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 
To the last syllable of recorded time, 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
And then is heard no more : it is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. 
Signifying nothing. Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5, 1. 19. 

When Fortune in her shift and change of mood 
Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants 
Which labour 'd after him to the mountain's top 
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down. 
Not one accompanying his declining foot. 

Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 84. 



clEie mnitv of morini^ dD^lorr* 



A A, race of mortal men, 
How as a thmg of naught 
I count ye, though ye live ; 
For who is there of men 
That viore ofblessittg knows, 
Thanjiist a little while 
To seem to prosper well. 
And, having seemed, to fall ? 

Who can count }>ia7i's prospei'ity as great, 
Or small and lowly, or of no account ? 
None of all this continues in one stay. 

Sophocles, (Edipus the King, 1. 1187. 

But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world ; now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence. 

yulius CcEsar, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 123. 

Renowned Warwick Dying. 

Warwick. Ah, who is nigh ? come to me, friend or foe. 
And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick ? 
Why ask I that? my mangled body shows. 
My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows, 



THE VANITY OF WORLDLY GLORY. 167 

That I must yield my body to the earth 

And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe. 

Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, 

Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, 

Under whose shade the ramping lion slept, 

Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree 

And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. 

These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil, 

Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun, 

To search the secret treasons of the world : 

The wrinkles in my brows, now fiU'd with blood, 

Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres ; 

For who lived king, but I could dig his grave ? 

And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow ? 

Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood ! 

My parks, my walks, my manors that I had, 

Even now forsake me, and of all my lands 

Is nothing left me but my body's length. 

Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? 

And, live we how we can, yet die we must. 

, Third Fart of J^ing Henry VI., Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 5. 

Richard II., moralizing after the Loss of his Crown. 

Of comforts no man speak : 
Let 's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs : 
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes 
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. 
Let 's choose executors and talk of wills ; 
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath 



i68 Shakespeare's morals. 

Save our deposed bodies to the ground ? 

Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, 

And nothing can we call our own but death 

And that small model of the barren earth 

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. 

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 

And tell sad stories of the death of kings : 

How some have been deposed ; some slain in war ; 

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed ; 

Some poison'd by their wives ; some sleeping kill'd ; 

AU murder'd : for within the hollow crown 

That rounds the mortal temples of a king 

Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, 

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, 

Allowing hmi a breath, a little scene, 

To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks. 

Infusing him with self and vain conceit. 

As if this flesh which walls about our life 

Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus 

Comes at the last and with a little pin 

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king ! 

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood 

With solemn reverence : throw away respect, 

Tradition, form and ceremonious duty, 

For you have but mistook me all this while : 

I live with bread like you, feel want. 

Taste grief, need friends : subjected thus, 

How can you say to me, I am a king ? 

King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 144. 



Cl^e Xenefitgi of aDber^itp. 



I grieve not that I once did grieve, 
In my large joy of sight and touch 
Beyond what others count for such, 
I am co7itent to suffer much. 

I knoru — is all the mourner saith, 

Knozvledge by suffering entereth ; 

And Life is perfected by Death?- 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets. 

I have known a luxuriant vine stvell into irregular twigs and bold ex- 
crescences, and spend itself in leaves and little rings, and afford but triffitig 
clusters to the wine-press, and a faint return to his heart which longed 
to be refreshed with a full vintage: but when the lord of the vine had 
caused the dressers to cut the wilder plant, and made it bleed, it greia 
temperate in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted into fair and 
juicy branches, and made accounts of that loss of blood by the return of 
fruit. Jeremy Taylor. 

Duke. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, 
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 

' Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. — John 
xii. 24. 



lyo SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 

More free from peril than the envious court? 

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 

The seasons' difference, as the icy fang 

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind. 

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body. 

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say 

' This is no flattery : these are counsellors 

That feelingly [)ersuade me what I am.' 

Sweet are the uses of adversity. 

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head : 

And this our life exempt from public haunt 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 

Sermons in stones and good in every thing. 

I would not change it. 

Amiens. Happy is your grace. 

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune 
Into so quiet and so sweet a style. 

As YoH Like It, Act ii. Sc. i. 

WOLSKY AFTER HIS FALL. 

Cardinal Woiscy. Farewell ! a long farewell, to all my 
greatness ! 
This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
'^J'he tender leaves of hopes ; to-morrow blossoms. 
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him ; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost. 



THE BENEFITS OF ADVERSITY. 171 

And, when lie thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root. 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory. 
But far beyoml my tlepth : my high-blown jiride 
At length broke under me and now has left me, 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. 
\'ain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : 
I feel my heart new opcn'il. 

0, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on i)rinces' favors ! 
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to. 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, 
More pangs and fears than wars and women have ; 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again. 

[Etiii-r Cromwell aiui stand's amazed. 
^^'hy, how now Cromwell? 

Crfltn. I have no power to speak, sir. 

ff v;/. \\hal, amazed 

At my misfortunes ? can thy spirit wonder 
A great man should decline ? Nay, an you weep, 
I am fall'n indeed. 

Cnvn. How does your grace ? 

Wol. Why. well : 

Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. 



172 SHAKESPEARE S MORALS. 

I know myself now ; and I feel within me 

A peace above all earthly dignities, 

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me, 

I humbly thank his grace ; and from these shoulders. 

These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken 

A load would sink a navy, too much honour : 

O, 'tis a burthen, Cromwell, 'tis a burthen 

Too heavy fox a man that hopes for heaven ! 

King Henry VIII., Act iii. Sc 2, 1. 351. 

Wolsey's Death. 

At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester, 
Lodged in the abbey ; where the reverend abbot, 
With aU his covent, honourably received him ; 
To whom he gave these words, ' O, father abbot, 
An old man, broken with the storms of state, 
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye ; 
Give him a little earth for charity ! ' 
So went to bed ; where eagerly his sickness 
Pursued him still : and, three nights after this, 
About the hour of eight, which he himself 
Foretold should be his last, full of repentance, 
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows, 
He gave his honours to the world again. 
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace. 

His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him ; 
For then, and not till then, he felt himself. 



THE BENEFITS OF ADVERSITY. I 73 

And found the blessedness of being little : 

And, to add greater honours to his age 

Than man could give him, he died fearing God. 

King He7iry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 17. 

'Tis good for men to love their present pains 
Upon example ; ^ so the spirit is eased : 
And when the mind is quickened, out of doubt, 
The organs, though defunct and dead before, 
Break up their drowsy grave and newly move, 
With casted slough and fresh legerity. 

King Henry V., Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 18. 

Whate'er I be, 

Nor I nor any man that but man is 

With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased 

With being nothing. 

King Richard II., Act v. Sc. 5, 1. 38. 

My long sickness 
Of health and living now begins to mend. 
And nothing brings me all things.^ 

Timoji of Athens, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 189. 

1 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in 
persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake : for when I am weak, then am I 
strong. — 2 Cor. xii. 10. 

■2 As having nothing, and yet possessing all things. — 2 Cor. vi. 10. 



antiemt^ a Ce^st of Cl^aracter, 



Queen Anne Bullen, in the very hour when she was preparing for 
the scaffold, called one of the king's privy chamber to her, and said to 
him : " Commend me to the king, attd tell him he is consta7tt in his course 
of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman he made me a marquisse; 
and from a marquisse a queen ; and now he had left no higher degree of 
earthly hoitour, he hath made me a martyr ^ 

Sir Francis Bacon, Apothegms, 9. 

Agamemnon. Princess, 
What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? 
The ample proposition that hope makes 
In all designs begun on earth below, 
Fails in the promised largeness : checks and disasters 
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd, 
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, 
Infect the sound pine and divert his grain 
Tortive and errant from his course of growth. 
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us 
That we come short of our suppose so far 
That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand ; 
Sith every action that hath gone before. 
Whereof we have record, trial did draw 
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim. 



ADVERSITY A TEST OF CHARA.CTER. 1 75 

And that unbodied figure of the thought 

That gave 't surmised shape. Why then, you princes, 

Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works, 

And call them shames? which are indeed nought else 

But the protractive trials of great Jove 

To find persistive constancy in men : 

The fineness of which metal is not found 

In fortune's love ; for then the bold and coward, 

The wise and fool, the artist and unread, 

The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin : 
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, 
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan. 
Puffing at all, winnows the light away : 
And what hath mass or matter, by itself 
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. 

Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. 3. 



n(> 



^^mpatl^^ tcit^ jHourner^, 



They alone 
Can feel for mourners who themselves have mourned. 

Sophocles, (Edipus at Colonos, 1. 1136. 

Sad souls are slain in merry company : 
Grief best is pleased with grief's society. 
True sorrow then is feelingly surprised, 
When with like semblance it is sj'mpathised. 

Lucrece, 1. 1 1 10. 

Give sorrow words : the grief that does not speak 
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. 

Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 209. 

Why should calamity be full of words ? 
Windy attorneys to their client woes, 
Airy succeeders of intestate joys, 
Poor breathing orators of miseries ! 
Let them have scope : though what they do impart 
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart. 

King Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 126. 

No mind that's honest 

But in it shares some woe. 

Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 197. 



/// 



ISejsignation untier %tnaUmmu 



Cease fro7n your weeping, maidetts. Over those 
For who?n the night of death as blessing comes, 
We may not mourn. 

Sophocles, CEdiptis at Colonos, 1. 1751. 

The period and opportunity for tears we choose when our friend is 
fallen asleep, when he hath laid his neck upon the lap of his mother, 
and let his head down to be raised in heaven. This grief is ill-placed 
and i?idecent. Jeremy Taylor. 

Duchess of York. I am your sorrow's nurse, 
And I will pamper it with lamentations. 

Dorset. Comfort, dear mother : God is much displeased 
That you take with unthankfulness his doing : 
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful, 
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt 
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent ; 
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven, 
For it requires the royal debt it lent you. 

King Richard in.. Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 87. 

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, 
To give these mourning duties to your father : 
But, you must know, your father lost a father ; 



178 Shakespeare's morals. 

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound 

In filial obligation for some term 

To do obsequious sorrow : but to persever 

In obstinate condolement is a course 

Of impious stubbornness ; 'tis unmanly grief; 

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, 

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient. 

An understanding simple and unschool'd. 

Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 87. 

Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind. 
And makes it fearful and degenerate. 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. i. 

Lady Capulet. O child ! O child ! my soul, and not my 
child ! 
Dead art thou ! Alack ! my child is dead ; 
And. with my child my joys are buried. 

Friar Lawrence. Peace ; ho, for shame ! confusion 's cure 
lives not 
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself 
Had part in this fair maid : now heaven hath all. 
And all the better is it for the maid : 
Your part in her you could not keep from death, 
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life. 
The most you sought was her promotion : 
For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced 
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced 



RESIGNATION UNDER BEREAVEMENT. I 79 

Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself ? 
O, in this love, you love your child so ill, 
That you run mad, seeing that she is well. 

Romeo and yidiet, Act iv. Sc. 5, 1. 62. 

Men must endure 

Their going hence, even as their coming hither : 

Ripeness is all. 

King Lear, Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 9. 



jflmistering i^pirits ; tljeir fop or ^orroto 
obet jman's course. 



As it was aptly said by one of Plato's school, the sense of man re- 
sembles the sun, which openeth and revealeth the terrestrial globe, but 
obscureth and concealeth the celestial ; so doth the sense discover itatural 
thittgs, but darken and shut up divine. . . . Therefore attend His will as 
Himself openeth it, and give unto faith that which unto faith belongeth. 

Sir Francis Bacon. 



T 



HEN is there mirth in heaven. 
When earthly things made even 
Atone together. 

As You Like It, Act v. Sc. 4, 1. 114. 



Merciful Heaven ! 
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt 
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak 
Than the soft myrtle : but man, proud man, 
Brest in a little brief authority, 
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured, 
His glassy essence, like an angry ape. 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
As make the angels weep. 

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 114. 



/^/ 



fear of J^eatl^ terrible to tl)e mtcfeeD. 



Black Horror! speed -we to the bed of death 
Where one, who wide and far 
Hath sent abroad the myriad plagues of war, 

Struggles with his last breath : 

Then to his wildly staring eyes 

The spectres of the slaughtered rise ; 
Then on his frenzied ear 

Their calls for vengeance, and the demons'' yell, 

In one heart-maddening chorus swell : 

Cold on his brow convulsing stands the dew, 

And night eternal darkens on his view. 

Robert Southey. 

Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where : 
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
This sensible warm motion to become 
A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit 
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice ; 
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, 
And blown with restless violence round about 
The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst 



1 82 Shakespeare's morals. 

Of those that lawless and incertain thought 
Imagine howling : 'tis too horrible ! 
The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature is a paradise 
To what we fear of death. 

Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. ii8. 



/g J 



H^t^pait in tt)z J^our of ?^eatl). 



From hence the lesson learn ye 
To reckon no ma?i happy till ye wit7tess 
The closing day ; until he pass the border 
Which severs life from death, unscathed by sorrozit. 

Sophocles, CEdipus the King, 1. 1 533. 
The Death of Cardinal Beaufort. 

Queen. Whither goes Vaux so fast ? what news, I prithee ? 

Faux. To signify unto his majesty 
That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death ; 
For suddenly a grievous sickness took him, 
That made him gasp and stare and catch the air, 
Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth. 
Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost ^ 
Were by his side ; sometime he calls the king 
And whispers to his pillow as to him 
The secrets of his overcharged soul : 
And I am sent to tell his majesty 
That even now he cries aloud for him. 

Queen. Go tell this heavy message to the king. 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 367. 

1 Duke of Gloster murdered by Beaufort's order. 



184 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Enter the King, Salisbury, Warwick, to the Cardinal in bed. 

King. How fares my lord ? speak, Beaufort, to thy sover- 
eign. 

Car. If thou be'st death, I '11 give thee England's treasure, 
Enough to purchase such another island, 
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain. 

King. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life. 
Where death's approach is seen so terrible ! 

War. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee. 

Car. Bring me unto my trial when you will. 
Died he not in his bed ? where should he die ? 
Can I make men live, whether they will or no ? 
O, torture me no more ! I will confess. 
Alive again ? then show me where he is : 
I '11 give a thousand pound to look upon him. 
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them. 
Comb down his hair ; look, look ! it stands upright. 
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul. 
Give me some drink ; and bid the apothecary 
Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. 

Ki7ig. O thou eternal Mover of the heavens. 
Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch ! 
O, beat away the busy meddling fiend 
That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul 
And from his bosom purge this black despair ! 

War. See, how the pangs of death do make him grin ! 

Sal. Disturb him not ; let him pass peaceably. 



DESPAIR IN THE HOUR OF DEATH. 1 85 

Ki}2g. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be ! 
Lord cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss, 
Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope. 
He dies, and makes no sign. O God, forgive him ! 

War. So bad a death argues a monstrous life. 

King. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. 
Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close ; 
And let us all to meditation.^ 

Second Part of King Henry VI., Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. i. 

1 Schlegel has referred to this scene thus : " Can any other poet be named, 
who has drawn aside the curtain of eternity, at the close of this life, with such 
overpowering and awful effect^ and yet it is not mere horror with which the 
mind is filled, but solemn emotion. A blessing and a curse, stand side by side : 
the pious king is an image of the heavenly mercy which, even in the sinner's last 
moments, labors to enter his soul." 



memorise* 



To look out on ills that are one's own. 

In tukich another's hand has had no share. 

This bringeth sharpest woe. 

Sophocles, Aias, 1. 260. 

Ah woe ! thou hast wasted thy days in delight. 

Now silence thou light 
In the night, in the night. 
The remorse in thy heart that is beating. 

Von Platen, translated by Longfellow. 

I HAVE not slept. 
Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
And the first motion, all the interim is 
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : 
The Genius and the mortal instruments 
Are then in council ; and the state of man. 
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
The nature of an insurrection. 

yulius Casar, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 62. 

Clarence's Dream. 
Brakenhury. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day ? 
Clarence. O, I have pass'd a miserable night, 
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams. 



REMORSE. 187 

That, as I am a Christian faithful man, 
I would not spend another such a night, 
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days, 
So full of dismal terror was the time ! . . . 

Brak. Awaked you not with tliis sore agony ? 

Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life ; 
O, then began the tempest to my soul ! 
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood. 
With that grim ferryman which poets write of. 
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. 
The first that there did greet my stranger soul. 
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick ; 
Who cried aloud, ' What scourge for perjury 
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ? ' 
And so he vanish'd : then came wandering by 
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
Dabbled in blood ; and he shrieked out aloud, 
* Clarence is come ; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, 
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury ; 
Seize on him. Furies, take him to your torments ! ' 
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends 
Environ'd me about, and howled in mine ears 
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise 
I trembling waked, and for a season after 
Could not believe but that I was in hell. 
Such terrible impression made the dream. 

Brak. No marvel, my lord, though it affrighted you ; 
I promise you, I am afraid to hear you tell it. 



1 88 Shakespeare's morals. 

Clar. O Brakenbury, I have done those things, 
Which now bear evidence against my soul, 
For Edward's sake ; and see how he requites me ! 

God ! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, 
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds, 

Yet execute thy wrath in me alone, 

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children ! 

1 pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me ; 
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. 

Kmg Richard III., Act i. Sc. 4, 1. i. 

Lady Macbeth. Here 's the smell of blood still : all the per- 
fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh ! 

Doctor. What a sigh is there ! The heart is sorely charged. 

Gentlewojnan. I would not have such a heart in my bosom 
for the dignity of the whole body. 

Dad. Well, well, well, — 

Gent. Pray God it be, sir. 

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice : yet I have 
known those which have walked in their sleep who have died 
holily in their beds. 

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown ; look 
not so pale. — I tell you yet again, Banquo 's buried ; he can- 
not come out on 's grave. 

Doct. Even so ? 

Lady M. To bed, to bed ! there 's knocking at the gate : 
come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What 's done 
cannot be undone. — To bed, to bed, to bed ! [Exit. 



REMORSE. 1 89 

Dod, Will she go now to bed ? 

Gent. Directly. 

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad : unnatural deeds 

Do breed unnatural troubles : infected minds 

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets : 

More needs she the divine than the physician. 

God, God forgive us all ! 

Macbeth, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 56. 

The Murder of the two Young Princes. 

Sir yatnes Tyrrel. The tyrannous and bloody deed is 
done, 
The most arch act of piteous massacre 
That ever yet this land was guilty of. 
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn 
To do this ruthless piece of butchery, 
Although they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs. 
Melting with tenderness and kind compassion 
Wept like two children in their death's sad stories, 
' Lo, thus,' quoth Dighton, ' lay those tender babes : ' 
' Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest, ' girdling one another 
Within their innocent alabaster arms : 
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk. 
Which in their summer beauty kiss'd each other. 
A book of prayers on their pillow lay ; 
Which once,' quoth Forrest, ' almost changed my mind ; 
But O ! the devil ' — there the villain stopp'd ; 
Whilst Dighton thus told on : 'We smothered 



ipo SHAKESPEARE S MORALS. 

The most replenished sweet work of nature, 
That from the prime creation e'er she framed.' 
Thus both are gone with conscience and remorse ; 
They could not speak ; and so I left them both, 
To bring this tidings to the bloody king. 
And here he comes. 

King Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. i. 



M^t ?^emeD tl^e d^uilt^ €onMtnct* 



He that has light within his own dear breast 
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day ; 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun. 

Milton, Cotnus, 1. 381. 

King Henry the Fourth in his Palace. 

HOW many thousands of my poorest subjects 
Are at this hour asleep ! O sleep, O gentle sleep. 
Nature's soft nurse how have I frighted thee, 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee 
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber. 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great. 
Under the canopies of costly state. 
And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody ? 
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile 
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch 
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell? 



192 Shakespeare's morals. 

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 

In cradle of the rude imperious surge 

And in the visitation of the winds, 

Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 

Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them 

With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, 

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? 

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose 

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude. 

And in the calmest and most stillest night. 

With all appliances and means to boot. 

Deny it to a king ? Then happy low, lie down ! 

Uneasy hes the head that wears a crown. 

Second Part of King Henry IV., Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 4. 

O, it is monstrous, monstrous ! 
Methought the billows spoke and told me of it ; 
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, 
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced 
The name of Prosper : it did bass my trespass. 

T/ie Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 95. 



c^ncouragement^ to 1$opt. 



Be of good cheer, O lady : dangers oft, 

Though blowing dreams by night, are lulled by day)- 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 63. 

Death which is the end of our life, is the enlargement of otcr spirits 
from hope to certainty, from uncertain fears to certain expectations, from 
the death of the body to the life of the soul. Jeremy Taylor. 

Be cheerful : wipe thine eyes : 
Some falls are means the happier to arise. ^ 

Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 402. 

Before the curing of a strong disease, 
Even in the instant of repair and health, 
The fit is strongest ; evils that take leave, 
On their departure most of all show evil. 

Kingfohn, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 112. 

1 For his anger endureth but a moment ; in his favour is life : weeping may 
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. — Psalm xxx. 5. 

2 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord : and he deUghteth in 
his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : for the Lord up- 
holdeth him with his hand. — Psalm xxxvii. 23, 24. 



194 



Shakespeare's morals. 

When fortune means to men most good, 
She looks upon them with a threatening eye. 

King John, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 119. 

Even through the hollow eyes of death 
I spy life peering ; but I dare not say 
How near the tidings of our comfort is. 

King Richard II., Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 270. 

What ! we have many goodly days to see : 
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed 
Shall come again, transform'd to .orient peail, 
Advantaging their loan with interest 
Of ten times double gain of happiness. 

King Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 320. 



Z\)t (5mlt ann -foll^ of ^uicine* 



77/1? term of life is limited 
Ne may a man prolong, nor shorten it : 
The sonldier may not move from watchfull sted. 
Nor leave his stand untill his captaine bed. 
Who life did limit by almightie doome. 
' {Quoth he) knows best the termes established ; 
And he that points the centonell his roome, 
Doth license him depart at sound of morning droome. 

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen. 

Courage chooses and bears up because it is honorable to do so, or be- 
cause it is disgraceful not to do so. But to die, and thus avoid poverty or 
love, or any thing painful, is not the part of a brave man, but rather of a 
coward ; for it is cowardice to avoid trouble ; and the suicide does not 
undergo death because it is honorable, but in order to avoid evil. 

Aristotle, Ethics, Book iii. ch. 7, 11. 

What man soever, in troubles rvaxing wroth. 
Will use a cure that 'j 'worse than the disease. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 514. 

O, THAT this too too solid flesh would melt, 
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew ! 
Or that the everlasting had not fix'd 
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! O God ! God ! 



196 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

How weary stale, flat, and unprofitable, 

Seem to me all the uses of this world ! 

Fie on 't ! ah fie ! 'tis an unweeded garden. 

That grows to seed; thingS rank and gross in nature 

Possess it merely. Ilatnlct, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 129. 

To be, or not to be : that is the question : 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. 
And by opposing end them ? To die : to sleep ; 
No more ; and by a sleep to say we end 
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep ; 
To sleep : perchance to dream : ay, there 's the rub ; 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
Wlien we have shuffled off this mortal coil. 
Must give us pause : there 's the respect 
That makes calamity of so long life ; 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time. 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear. 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 



THE GUILT AND FOLLY OF SUICIDE. 1 97 

But that the dread of something after death, 

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn 

No traveller returns, puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 

And enterprises of great pith and moment 

With this regard their currents turn awry, 

And lose the name of action. 

Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. i, 1. 56. 

Why, I must die ; 

And if I do not by thy hand, thou art 

No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter 

There is a prohibition so divine 

That cravens my weak hand. 

Cymbcline, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 74. 

You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me ; 

Let not my worser spirit tempt me again 

To die before you please ! 

King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. 22 1. 



Connemnatton of j^uelling- 



Then do mett's lives become one vast disease. 
When once they seek their ills by ills to cure. 

Sophocles, Fragments, 1. 98. 

What ! a maifs blood for an injurious passionate speech, for a dis- 
dainful look I Nay, this is not all : that thou mayest gain amongst men 
the reputation of a discreet, well-tempered murderer, be sure thou killest 
him not in passion, when thy blood is hot and boiling with the provoca- 
tion, but proceed with as much temper and settledness of reason, with as 
much discretion and preparedness, as thou wouldest to the communion : 
after some several days' meditation, invite him, mildly and affably, into 
some retired place : and there let it be put to the trial, whether thy life or 
his must answer the injury. William Chillingworth. 

You undergo too strict a paradox, 
Striving to make an ugly deed look fair : 
Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd 
To bring manslaughter into form and set quarrelling 
Upon the head of valour ; which indeed 
Is valoiu" misbegot and came into the world 
When sects and factions were newly born : 
He 's truly valiant that can wisely suffer 



CONDEMNATION OF DUELUNG. 1 99 

T*he worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs 

His outsides, to wear them Hke his raiment, carelessly, 

And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, 

To bring it into danger. 

If \vrongs be evils and enforce us kill 

What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill ! 

Timon of Athens , Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 24. 






TAe world recedes ; it disappears ! 
Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears 

With soicnds seraphic rittg ! 
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I Jly ! 
O Grave I where is thy victory ? 

O Death I where is thy sting ? 

Alexander Pope. 

Queen Katherine \after the vision of angels, holding up her 
hands to heave?i\. Spirits of peace, where are ye ? 
are ye all gone, 
And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye ? 

Griffith. Madam, we are here. 

Kath. It is not you I call for : 

Saw ye none enter since I slept ? 

Grif. None, madam. 

Kath. No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop 
Invite me to a banquet ; whose bright faces 
Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun ? 
They promised me eternal happiness ; 
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel 
I am not worthy yet to wear : I shall, assuredly. 



CHRISTIAN ASSURANCE IN THE HOUR OF DEATH. 201 

Grif. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams 
Possess your fancy. 

Kath. Bid the music leave. 

They are harsh and heavy to me. \Music ceases. 

Patience. Do you note 

How much her grace is alter'd on the sudden ? 
How long her face is drawn ? how pale she looks, 
And of an earthy cold ? Mark her eyes ! 

Grif. She is going, wench : pray, pray. 

Fat. Heaven comfort her ! 

Kath. Remember me 

In all humility unto his highness : 

Say his long trouble now is passing 

Out of this world ; tell him, in death I bless'd him, 

For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell, 

My lord. Grififith, farewell. Nay, Patience, 

You must not leave me yet : I must to bed : 

Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench. 

Let me be used with honour : strew me over 

With maiden flowers, that all the world may know 

I was a chaste wife to my grave : embalm me, 

Then lay me forth : although unqueen'd, yet like 

A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me. 

I can no more. 

King Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 83. 



fiml M^Mution of tl^e mom. 



That shriek must needs be terrible, -when millions of men and -women 
at the same instant shall fearfully cry out, attd the noise shall mingle 
with the trumpet of the Archangel, with the thunders of the dying and 
groaning heavens, and the crack of the dissolving -world, -whett the whole 
. fabric of nature shall shake into dissolution and eternal ashes ! 

Jeremy Taylor, On the Day of Judgment. 

/^^UR revels now are ended. These our actors 
^-^ As I foretold you, were all spirits and 
Are melted into air, into thin air : 
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision. 
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces. 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. 
Leave not a rack behind.^ 

The Tempest, Act iv. Sc. i, 1. 148. 

1 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which 
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein, shall be burned up, 
— 2 Peter, iii. 11. 



life tioortt)le0j5 tritl^out tl^e J^ope 
of SlmmortaUt^/ 



Still the long days have brought 
Griefs near and nearer yet. 
And joys — than canst not see 
One trace of what they were ; 
When a man passeth on 

To length of days beyond the rightful bourne ; 
The bridegroom^ s Joy all gone, 
The lyre all silent noza, 
The choral music hushed. 
Death comes at last. 

Happiest beyond compare 
Never to taste of life ; 
Happiest in order next, 
Being born, with quickest speed 
Thither again to turn 
From zvhence we came 
When youth hath passed away. 
With all its follies light. 
What sorro^u is not there ? 
Alurders, strifes, wars, and wrath and jealousy. 
And closing life^ s long course, the last and zoorst 

' If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 
I Cor. XV. 19. 



204 Shakespeare's morals. 

An age of weak caprice. 
Friendless and hard of speech. 
Where, met in union strange. 
Dwell ills on ills. 

Sophocles, CEdipns at Colonos, 12 14. 

Over the horizon of the earth, dawning, brightening, rises oiolher 
light which is not that of the sun. From the midst of the clouded glory 
above, from the bosotn of its angust mystery, come the warning and the 
welcome of heaven to earth ! It is a warning, not cruel and stern, but 
sadly solemn, which says, " God shall bring every work into judgment, 
with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." It is 
a voice of welcome, which says, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." 

Ephraim Peabody, D. D. 

Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind. 

But leave, oh ! leave the light of Hope behitid! 

What, though my winged hours of bliss have been. 

Like angel-visits, few and far between. 

Her musing mood shall every pang appease, 

And charm when pleasures lose their power to please ! 

Thomas Campbell, The Pleasures of Hope. 

^~\ GOD ! that one might read the book of fate, 
^-^ And see the revolution of the times 
Make mountains level, and the continent, 
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself 
Into the sea ! and, other times, to see 
The beachy girdle of the ocean 
Too wide for Neptune's hips : how chances mock, 
And changes fill the cup of alteration 



LIFE WORTHLESS WITHOUT THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 2O5 

With divers liquors ! O, if this were seen, 

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, 

What perils past, what crosses to ensue. 

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die. 

Second Fart of King Henry IV., Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 44. 

Be absolute for death ; either death or life 

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life : 

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing 

That none but fools would keep : a breath thou art, 

Servile to all the skyey influences, 

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st. 

Hourly afflict : merely, thou art death's fool ; 

For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun 

And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble ; 

For all the accommodations that thou bear'st 

Are nursed by baseness. Thou 'rt by no means valiant ; 

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork 

Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, 

And that thou oft provokest ; yet grossly fear'st 

Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; 

For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains 

That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not ; 

For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get. 

And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain : 

For thy complexion shifts to strange effects. 

After the moon. If thou art rich, thou 'rt poor ; 

For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, 



2o6 Shakespeare's morals. 

Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, 

And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none ; 

For thine own bowels, which do call thee she. 

The mere effusion of thy proper loins. 

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum. 

For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, 

But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, 

Dreaming on both ; for all thy blessed youth 

Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms 

Of palsied eld ; and when thou art old and rich, 

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, 

To make thy riches pleasant. What 's yet in this 

That bears the name of life ? Yet in this life 

Lie hid more thousand deaths : yet death we fear, 

That makes these odds all even. 

Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 5. 

Duke Senior. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy : 
This wide and universal theatre 
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
Wherein we play in. 

yaqiies. All the world 's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players : 
They have their exits and their entrances ; 
And one man in his time plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant. 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel 



UFE WORTHLESS WITHOUT THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 207 

And shining morning face, creeping like snail 

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel. 

Seeking the bubble reputation 

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 

In fair round belly with good capon lined. 

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut. 

Full of wise saws and modern instances ; 

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon. 

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side. 

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 

For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice, 

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, 

That ends this strange eventful history. 

Is second childishness and mere oblivion, . 

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. 

As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 7, 1. 136. 



^ s 



€i)n^tian i^ope. 



Religion e^en in death abides with men ; 
Die they or live it does not pass aivay?- 

Sophocles, Philoctetes, 1. 1443. 

Heavenly hope is all serene, 

But earthly hope, how bright soever, 
Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene. 

As false and fleeting as 'tis fair. 

Reginald Heber. 

So part we sadly in this troublous world, 
To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem. 

Third Part of King Henry VI., Act v. Sc. 5, 1. 7. 

Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it 

To he that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest. 

King Richard II., Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 286. 

I have five hundred crowns, 
The thrifty hire I saved under your father. 
Which I did store to be my foster-nurse 

1 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. — John xi. 25. 



CHRISTIAN HOPE. 2O9 

When service should in my old limbs lie lame 
And unregarded age in corners thrown : 
Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed. 
Yea providently caters for the sparrow,^ 
Be comfort to my age ! 

As Yoii Like It, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 38. 

God shall be my hope, 
My stay, my guide and lantern to my feet.^ 

Seco7id Part of King He7iry VI., Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 24. 

Now have I done a good day's work : 
You peers continue this united league : 
I every day expect an embassage 
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence ; 
And now in peace my soul shall part to heaven, 
Since I have set my friends at peace on earth. 

ICing Richard III, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. i. 

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls 
Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair ! 

Second Fart of King Henry VI., Act ii. Sc. i, I. 65. 

1 Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not,neither do they reap, nor 
gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. — Matt. vi. 26. 

2 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. — Psalm 
cxix. lov 



' ,-^ 



l^eatienl^ l^armon^ in immortal 



T/ie immortal old man, chained methought eternally to earth, was 
unhappy at the sound of tnusic which dilates the heart of man into its 
whole capacity for the infinite, and he cried aloud, " Away, away ! thou 
speakest of things which throughout tny endless life I have found not and 
shall not find." Jean Paul Richter. 

Lorenzo, Jessica, Portia, and Nerissa. 

Lorenzo. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears : soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold : 
There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. . . . 

jFessica. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. 



HEAVENLY HARMONY IN IMMORTAL SOULS. 2 

Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive : 
For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
Which is the hot condition of their blood ; 
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound. 
Or any air of music touch their ears, 
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand. 
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze 
By the sweet power of music : therefore the poet 
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods ; 
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, 
But music for the time doth change his nature. 
The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds. 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils ; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night 
And his affections dark as Erebus : 
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. 

Enter Portia and Nerissa. 

Por. That liglit we see is burning in my hall. 
How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Ner. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. 

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less : 
A substitute shines brightly as a king 
Until a king be by, and then his state 



212 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

Empties itself, as doth an inland brook 
Into the main of waters. Music ! hark ! 

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house. 

For. Nothing is good, I see, without respect : 
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. 

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. 

For. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark 
When neither is attended, and I think 
The nightingale, if she should sing by day. 
When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
No better a musician than the wren. 
How many things by season season'd are 
To their right praise and true perfection ! 

Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. I, 1. 54. 



^orrotD for a nu^^pent JLife* 



There is no power in holy men. 
Nor charms in prayer, nor purifying form 
Of peniieitce, nor outward look, nor fast. 
Nor agony, nor, greater than all these. 
The innate tortures of that deep despair, 
Which is remorse without the fear of hell. 
But all in all sufficient to itself, 
Would make a hell of heaven — can exorcise. 
From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense 
Of its 07un sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge 
Upon itself. LoRD Byron. 

ALAS, 'tis true I have gone here and there 
And made myself a motley to the view, 
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, 
Made old offences of affections new ; 
Most true it is that I have look'd on truth 
Askance and strangely. ... 
O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, 
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds. 
That did not better for my life provide 
Than public means which public manners breeds. 



214 Shakespeare's morals. 

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, 
And ahuost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, Hke the dyer's hand : 
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd ; 
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection ; 
No bitterness that I will bitter think. 
Nor double penance, to correct correction. 

Sonnet, ex. 



^/J*^ 



i^umilit^ ann Contrittou ixx ^ieto 
of J^tatl). 



Since repe7itance is a duty of so great and giant-like bulk, let no man 
crowd it up into so narrow room as that it is strangled in its birth for 
•want of time, and air to breathe in. Jeremy Taylor. ■ 

NO longer mourn for me when I am dead 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
Give warning to the world that I am fled 
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : 
Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot 
If thinking on me then should make you woe. 
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse 
When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 
Do not so much as my poor, name rehearse, 
But let your love even with my hfe decay, 

Lest the wise world should look into your moan 
And mock you with me after I am gone. 
O, lest the world should task you to recite 
What merit lived in me, that you should love 
After my death, dear love, forget me quite. 



2i6 Shakespeare's morals. 

For you in me can nothing wortliy prove ; 

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, 

To do more for me than mine own desert, 

And hang more praise upon deceased I 

Than niggard truth would willingly impart : 

O, lest your true love may seem false in this, 

That you for love speak well of me untrue, 

My name be buried where my body is. 

And live no more to shame nor me nor you. 
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, 
And so should you to love things nothing worth. 

That time of year thou mayest in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold. 

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

In me thou seest the twilight of such day 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 

Which by and by black night doth take away. 

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire 

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. 

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, 
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

Sonnets, Ixxi., Ixxii., Ixxiii. 



1 / 



7 



iMi morti0. 



There is nothing in history which is so improving to the reader as 
those accounts zvhich we nitist write of the deaths of eminent persons, and 
of their behaviour in that dreadful season. 

Joseph Addison, Spectator, No. 289. 

O, BUT they say the tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony : 
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, 
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. 
He that no more must say is listen'd more 

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose ; 
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before : 

The setting sun, and music at the close, 
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, 
Writ in remembrance more than things long past : 
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear, 
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear. 

King Richard IT., Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 5. 



:l / er 



S-1mJ^ 



FROM 



^]^afeeg^peate'0 mUh 



iFirst, K commentj ntg sottle into tfje j^antieis of ®oti 
mg Creator, 

looping anti assuretiltE kUeijins, 

STj^roug]^ ti^onclfe wEritcs of 3tQm dL^viett mg Sa&four, 

STo fie matje partaker of Igfe eberlastm^e, 

^nti mg iatn^z to tfie eartfj 

SMj^ereof ^t ss ntatne. 




1 / 



f 



SHAKESPEARE THE CHIEF OF 
ALL POETS. 



^I)afeespeare*fi; intellect, 

OF this Shakespeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one 
sometimes hears a little idolatrously expressed is, in 
fact, the right one. I think the best judgment, not of this 
country only, but of Europe, at large, is slowly pointing to the 
conclusion, that Shakespeare is the chief of all Poets hitherto ; 
the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left 
record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole, I 
know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, 
if we take all the characters of it, in any other man. Such a 
calmness of depth, placid joyous strength ; all things imaged 
in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil 
unfathomable sea ! It has been said that, in the con- 
structing of Shakespeare's dramas, there is, apart from all 
other " faculties," as they are called, an understanding mani- 
fested equal to that in Bacon's " Novum Organum." That 
is true ; and it is not a truth that strikes every one. It would 
become more apparent if we tried, any of us for himself, 



220 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

how, out of Shakespeare's dramatic materials, we could fash- 
ion such a result ! The built house seems all so fit, — every 
way as it should be, as if it came there by its own law and 
the nature of things, — we forget the rude disorderly quarry 
it was shaped from. The very perfection of the house, as if 
Nature herself had made it, hides the builder's merit. Per- 
fect, more perfect, than any other man, we may call Shake- 
speare in this ; he discerns, knows as by instinct, what 
condition he works under, what his materials are, what his 
own force and its relation to them is. It is not a transitory 
glance of insight that will suffice ; it is deliberate illumination 
of the whole matter ; it is a calmly seeing eye ; a great in- 
tellect, in short. How a man, of some wide thing that he 
has witnessed, will construct a narrative, what kind of picture 
and delineation he will give of it, is the best measure you 
could get of what intellect is in the man. What circum- 
stance is vital and shall stand prominent ; which unessential, 
fit to be suppressed ; where is the true beginning, the true 
sequence and ending? To find out this, you task the whole 
force of insight that is in the man. He must understand the 
thing ; according to the depth of his understanding will the 
fitness of his answer be. You will try him so. Does like 
join itself to like ; does the spirit of method stir in that con- 
fusion, so that its embroilment becomes order? Can the 
man say. Fiat h^x, let there be light, and out of chaos 
make a world ? Precisely as there is light in himself will he 
accomplish this. . ... 

If called to define Shakespeare's faculty, I should say 



SHAKESPEARE S INTELLECT. 22 1 

superiority of intellect, and think I had included all under 
that. What, indeed, are faculties? We talk of faculties as 
if they were distinct, — things separable ; as if a man had 
intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet, and 
arms. This is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a 
man's " intellectual nature," and of his " moral nature," as if 
these again were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of 
language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance ; we 
must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at 
all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It 
seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for the most 
part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, 
and to keep for ever in mind, that these divisions are at 
bottom but names ; that man's spiritual nature — the vital 
force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible ; 
that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so 
forth, are but different figures of the same power of insight ; 
all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically 
related ; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of 
them. Morality itself, — what we call the moral quality of a 
man, — what is this but another side of the one vital force 
whereby he is and works ? All that a man does is physiog- 
nomical of him. You may see how a man would fight by the 
way in which he sings ; his courage, or want of courage, is 
visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, 
no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is o?ie ; and 
preaches the same self abroad in all these ways. 

Without hands a man might have feet, and could still walk ; 



22 2 Shakespeare's morals. 

but consider it, — without morality, intellect were impossi- 
ble for him ; a thoroughly immoral man could not know any 
thing at all. To know a thing, — what we can call knowing, 
— a man must first love the thing, sympathize with it : that is, 
be virtuously related to it. If he have not the justice ib put 
down his own selfishness at every turn, the courage to stand 
by the dangerous-true at every turn, how shall he know? 
His virtues, all of them, will lie recorded in his knowledge. 
Nature, with her truth, remains to the bad, to the selfish and 
the pusillanimous, for ever a sealed book : what such can 
know of nature is mean, superficial, small ; for the uses of the 
day merely. . . . 

Whoever looks intelligently at this Shakespeare may recog- 
nize that he too was 2i. prophet in his way ; of an insight analo- 
gous to the prophetic, though he took it up in another strain. 
Nature seemed to this man also divine ; unspeakable, deep 
as Tophet, high as Heaven. " We are such stuff as dreams 
are made of ! " That scroll in Westminster Abbey, which 
few read with understanding, is of the depth of any seer. 
But the man sang ; did not preach, except musically. We 
called Dante, the melodious Priest of Middle-Age Catholi- 
cism. May we not call Shakespeare the still more melodious 
Priest of a true Catholicism, — the "Universal Church" of 
the future and of all times ? No narrow superstition,^ harsh 

1 Shakespeare is no sectarian ; to all he deals with equity and mercy ; be- 
cause he knows all, and his heart is wide enough for alK In his mind the world 
is a whole ; he figures it as Providence governs it ; and to him it is not strange 
that the sun should be called to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to 
fall on the just and the unjust. — Carlyle, Essay on Goethe. 



Shakespeare's intellect. 223 

asceticism, intolerance, fanatical fierceness, or perversion ; a 
Revelation, so far as it goes, that such a thousand-fold hidden 
beauty and divineness dwells in all Nature ; which let all men 
worship as they can. We may say without offence, that there 
rises a kind of universal psalm out of this Shakespeare, too ; 
not unfit to make itself heard among the still more sacred 
Psalms. Not in disharmony with these, if we understood 
them, but in harmony. I cannot call this Shakespeare a 
" sceptic," as some do ; his indifference to the creeds and 
theological quarrels of his time misleading them. No ; 
neither unpatriotic, though he says little about his patri- 
otism ; nor sceptic, though he says Httle about his faith. 
Such " indifference " was the fruit of his greatness withal ; 
his whole heart was in his own grand sphere of worship (we 
may call it such) ; these other controversies, vitally important 
to other men, were not vital to him. 

But call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right 
glorious thing, and set of things, this that Shakespeare has 
brought us ? For myself, I feel that there is actually a kind 
of sacredness in the fact of such a man being sent into this 
earth. Is he not an eye to us all ; a blessed heaven-sent 
bringer of light ? And, at bottom, was it not, perhaps far 
better that this Shakespeare, every way an unconscious man, 
was conscious of no heavenly message ? He did not feel, like 
Mahomet, because he saw into those internal splendors, that 
he specially was the " prophet of God ; " and was he not 
greater than Mahomet in that ? Greater ; and also, if we 
compute strictly, as we did in Dante's case, more successful. 



2 24 Shakespeare's morals. 

It was intrinsically an error, that notion of Mahomet's, of liis 
supreme Prophcthood ; and has come down to us inextricably 
involved in error to this day ; dragging along with it such a 
coil of fables, ii)ii)urilies, intolerances, as makes it a question- 
able step for me here and now to say, as I have done, that 
Mahomet was a true speaker at all, and not rather an am- 
»/ bilious charlatan, perversity and simulacrum ; no speaker, 
but a babbler. ICven in Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will 
have exhausted himself and become obsolete, while this 
Shakespeare, this Dante, may still be young; while this 
Shakespeare may still pretend to be a priest of mankind, of 
Arabia, as of other places, for unlimited periods to come. 

Thomas Carlvle, The Ilao as a Poet. 



CI)e (^itatuesis of ^baliespeare'si (3mm. 

THE name of Shakespeare is the greatest in our litera- 
ture. It is the greatest in all literature. No man 
ever came near to him in the creative powers of the mind ; 
no man had ever such strength at once, and such variety of 
imagination. Coleridge has most felicitously applied to him 
a Cireek epithet, given before to I know not whom, certainly 
none so deserving of it, n-vpimow;, the thousand-soulcd Shake- 
speare, The number of characters in his plays is astonishingly 
great, without reckoning those who, although transient, have 
often their individuality ; all distinct, all types of human life 



THE GREATNESS OF SHAKESPEARE'S GENIUS. 225 

in well-defined differences. Yet he never takes an abstract 
quality to embody it ; scarcely, perhaps, a definite condition 
of manners, as Jonson does ; nor did he draw much, as I 
conceive, from living models ; there is no manifest appear- 
ance of personal caricature in his comedies, though, in 
some slight traits of character, this may not improbably have 
been the case. Above all, neither he, nor his contemporaries, 
wrote for the stage in the worst, though most literal, and of 
late years, the most usual sense ; making the servants and 
handmaids of dramatic invention to lord over it, and limiting 
the capacities of the poet's mind to those of the performers. 
If this poverty of the representative department of the drama 
had hung, like an incumbent fiend, on the creative power 
of Shakespeare, how would he have poured forth, with such 
inexhaustible prodigality, the vast diversity of characters 
that we find in some of his plays? This it is in which he 
leaves far behind, not the dramatists alone, but all writers of 
fiction. Compare with him Homer, the tragedians of Greece, 
the poets of Italy, Plautus, Cervantes, Moliere, Addison, Le 
Sage, Fielding, Richardson, Scott, the romancers of the 
elder or later schools, — one man has far more than surpassed 
them all. Othel-s may have been as sublime, others may 
have been more pathetic, others may have equalled him in 
grace and purity of language, and have shunned some of his 
faults ; but the philosophy of Shakespeare, his intimate 
searching out of the human heart, whether in the gnomic 
form of sentence, or in the dramatic exhibition of character, 
is a gift peculiarly his own. 

Henry Hali-AM, Literature of Europe, chap. vii. 



226 Shakespeare's morals. 



^l)afeespeare as a Ceacl)er of jlKorals;. 

OHAKESPEARE never aims at preaching morals by ex- 
*^ press and direct precept. He does it, for the most part, 
indirectly by the mouth of the least prejudiced, by the specta- 
tors rather than by the actors in his plays. And this moreover 
only in tragedy, where dazzling passions vacillate between 
vice and virtue, and where it was necessary to prevent a mis- 
conception ; in comedy, where he endeavored rather to 
amuse than to exert the mind, it would have been prejudicial 
to the design of his art had he added severe lectures to the 
picture of folly, which is in itself represented in a ridiculous 
aspect. If Shakespeare thus, taking Johnson's words liter- 
ally, seems to write with no moral aim, this very appearance 
is the triumph of his art. For art is not intended to pro- 
claim moral truth by direct teaching, but by living, acting 
impulses, by illustration and example. This touching of the 
heart is far more adapted than the cold language to the head 
to teach us to feel delight and disgust in right and wrong, 
and to develop in us that true self love which strives to make 
the good and the beautiful its own. There is no more fruit- 
less branch in all literature than moral philosophy ; except 
perhaps those dramatic moralities into whose frigid defects 
poetry will always sink whenever it aims at direct moral 
teaching, and degrades itself as the medium of this. . . 
This method of morality was far from Shakespeare's object ; 
yet morality was as much his object as poetry itself. If they 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEACHER OF MORALS. 227 

had told him of the new theories, which would emancipate 
poetry from morality, he would not have understood them, 
because his poetry was designed to represent the substance 
of active life, because this substance being of a wholly moral 
nature, morality is consequently utterly inseparable from true 
poetry. If they had pointed out to him the manner of 
Southern poetry, which aspired after formal and outward 
beauty, he would have turned away from this attractive shal- 
lowness, as he, indeed, involuntarily did even in his descrip- 
tive poems. If they had held before him the modern poems, 
which Goethe styled the "hterature of despondency," in 
which vice celebrates its triumphs, he would have cast them 
from him with aesthetic as well as moral abhorrence, — he 
who called evil a "deformity" and virtue "beauty." 

Shakespeare's poetry is moral ; his poetic impulse, there- 
fore, is inseparably interwoven with his ethical feelings, 
because he took life as a whole, and was himself a whole 
man, in whom the moral, aesthetic, and intellectual qualities 
were separated by no speculative analysis; and his art is 
therefore so great, because, out of this whole, he absorbed 
into /limse/f more of the moral element of life than any other 
has done, not even excepting the ancients. To knit poetry 
to life by this moral cement, to sacrifice the outer beauty to 
the higher morality when the mirror was to be held up to life, 
to exhibit to the age in this mirror no aesthetic, flattering 
picture, but a moral picture of unvarnished truth, — this is 
throughout the express aim of Shakespeare's poetry ; and he 
followed it with such deep earnestness, that to this we must 



228 SHAKESPEARE'S MORALS. 

look for the reason why his poetry had so wholly different 
an influence to that of our own Schiller and Goethe, which 
excited rather to poetry, and to poetry alone, than to a hearty 
sympathy with the world. The relation of Shakespeare's 
poetry to morality and to moral influence upon men is most 
perfect ; in this respect, from Aristotle to Schiller, nothing 
higher has been asked of poetry than that which Shakespeare 
rendered. , . . 

Never do we find in Shakespeare that his hand is affected 
by the passion of which he writes, a thing so common among 
many modern poets, who are only the product of their own 
passions. . . . Possessing this property of perfect self- 
command, our poet never falls into the fault of even our 
great modern poets, of investing passion or weakness with 
attractions which might captivate us and lead us morally 
astray ; far rather it was his natural talent, as it was his aim 
in accordance with Aristotle's law, to make his dramas tend 
to the purification of the passions. According to Aristotle's 
well-known precept, the action of the tragedy ought to be of 
that nature that it should excite fear and sympathy, and by 
this means should purify these and similar emotions of the 
mind. This law, Shakespeare satisfied in a manner utterly 
removed from all triviaUties, in a manner never to be sur- 
passed. ... 

If there be this moral influence in Shakespeare's poetry, if 
it be so imbued with morality, that a kind of system of 
woridly wisdom can be drawn from it, it may be asked, how, 
amid the numberless, endlessly contradictory, characteristic 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEACHER OF MORALS. 229 

expressions of his figures, can his own opinion be with 
certainty discovered ? 

We might reply, that the opinions which are most fre- 
quently on the lips of his purer characters, and are repeated 
at every opportunity, point out the basis of the poet's mode 
of thought, and because they are so predominant in his mind 
they must be most his own. But in saying this we should 
not go far enough. It is, indeed, difficult to reach the very 
root of his more important characters on account of their 
combination of qualities, but much more difficult to fathom 
himself, who, as it were, is again combined out of all these 
characters united. It is more essential for us to consider 
the ideal characters which Shakespeare has sustained in a 
medium between the strong tragic and the weak comic fig- 
ures of his pieces ; and the suggestion we have given with 
respect to Henry, Posthumus, Orlando, and the hke, must 
not be lost sight of in this investigation.^ But the main 
path lies in the consideration of the dramatic styles and their 
relation to each other, and then in the moral justice which is 
displayed in the development of the actions. We have in 
Shakespeare, not a teacher before us who endeavored simply 
to solve the enigmas of the world, but the world itself with 
its riddles is reflected to our view ; all chance, however, is 
removed ; the moving spring of the actions, and the neces- 
sity of the fate which they involve, are discovered to us ; we 

1 The suggestion referred to is in effect tliat as are his favorite characters, 
such as those mentioned, so Shakespeare must have been, for these show the 
thoughts upon which his mind dwelt most, and with the greatest complacency. 



230 Shakespeare's morals. 

must watch the mechanism thus displayed ; and, pondering 
upon it, we learn to understand the mind of the master- 
regulator. 

Georg Gottfried Gervinus, Shakespeare Commentaries. 

There is probably no vainer labor than the going about to 
make men good by dint of moral arguments and reasoned 
convictions of the understanding. One noble impulse will 
do more good towards ennobhng men than a volume of 
ethical precepts ; and there is no sure way to put down a 
bad passion but by planting a good one. Set the soul on 
fire with moral beauty, that 's the way to burn the devils out 
of it. So that for making men virtuous, there is, as Gervi- 
nus says, " No more fruitless branch of literature than ethical 
science ; except, perhaps, those dramatic moralities into 
whose frigid impotence poetry will alway sink when it aims 
at direct moral teaching." 

Now I do not at all scruple to affirm that Shakespeare's 
poetry will stand the test of these principles better than any 
other writings we have outside the Bible. His rank in the 
School of Morals is indeed no less high than in the School of 
Art. He is every way as worthy to be our teacher and guide 
in what is morally just and noble and right as in what is 
artistically beautiful and true. In his workmanship, the law 
of moral proportion is observed with a fidelity that can never 
be too much admired : in other words, the moral element of 
the beautiful not only has a place, but is in the right place, 
— the right place, I mean, to act the most surely and the 



THE CLIMAX IN THE HISTORY OF DRAIVIATIC ART. 23 1 

most effectively on the springs of life, or as an inspiration of 
good thoughts and desires. 

Rev. H. N. Hudson, Shakespeare, his Life, Art, 
and Characters, vol. i., p. 244. 

If the plague had not spared him in his cradle, . . . the 
English or, if we choose to call it so, the Anglo-Saxon race, 
both in Europe and in America, would have lacked a certain 
degree of that general elevation of mental and moral tone, 
and that practical wisdom, which distinguish it among the 
peoples. A source of pleasure more exquisite and more 
refining than is elsewhere to be found, of instruction more 
nearly priceless than any except that which fell from the lips 
of Jesus of Nazareth, would not have been opened. 

Richard Grant White, Life and Genius of Shakespeare, p. 306. 



C!)e Climajc m t{)e 5)i£;tarp of 
C>ramatic Sfrt. 

'' I ^HREE agents — which, from the standpoint of the Chris- 
-^ tian view of life, form, as it were, the elements of a com- 
plete action — appeared one after the other in the course of 
the development of the English drama, and ultimately took 
entire possession of the stage. The Mysteries regarded the 
action one-sidedly, as a divine, supernatural act, as a mere 
emanation of the divine government of the world ; the 



232 Shakespeare's morals. 

• 

Moralities represented it in an equally one-sided manner, as 
simply the result of universally prevailing moral forces and 
laws ; lastly, J. Heyvvood's Interludes conceived it with 
equal one-sidedness, as nothing more than the expression of 
the arbitrary conduct and aspirations of single individuals. 
The subsequent regular drama, down to Greene and Marlowe, 
tried in vain to blend these three elements into a truly 
organic whole ; but they did not accomplish more than 
giving the elements an external connection. But Shakespeare, 
by pointing in a symbolical manner, in such pieces as Mac- 
beth, Hamlet, JuHus Caesar, Richard III., and Cymbeline, 
to the interference of a higher, divine power, invisible to the 
common eye (yet everywhere allowing the general moral 
powers to co-operate as personifications of the divine govern- 
ment of the world, not only internally but externally also by 
means of representatives of the state and law), and at the 
same time by always representing the action as the free act 
of the individual, — as the outflow of the moral character and 
of the circumstances in the life of the individual, — was the 
first to bring about a truly organic union of the three agents. 
He thereby not only raised the original elements of the Eng- 
lish drama to their right position in regard to one anotlier, 
but also made dramatic poetry in general the poetical reflex 
of the world's history. Thus, in this respect also, he forms 
the climax and the turning-point in the history of dramatic 
art. 

Dr. Hermann Ulrici, Shakespeare's Dramatic Art, vol. i., p. 359. 



Shakespeare's reverence. 233 



^|)afee£;peare'£; Eeberence. 

IN the tragedy of Hamlet, where the ghost vanishes upon 
the cock's crowing, he takes occasion to mention its 
crowing all hours of the night about Christmas time, and to 
insinuate a kind of religious veneration for that season. 

It faded on the crowing of the cock. 
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long. 
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad : 
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes ; no witch hath power to charm ; 
So hallowed and so gracious is the time. 

This admirable author, as well as the best and greatest men 
of all ages, and of all nations, seems to have had his mind 
thoroughly seasoned with religion, as is evident by many 
passages in his plays, that would not be suffered by a mod- 
em audience. 

The Tattler, Number in. 



234 Shakespeare's morals. 

E\)t ^anttp of ^l)afee£;peare'£{ <Senius. 

" I ^HE commentator on Shakespeare has no more impor- 
-^ tant office than to illustrate the sanity of his genius, — 
his intellectual and moral healthfulness. The large sympathy- 
he communicates is comprehensive, not only of afflicted virtue 
but also when human frailty has brought down calamities on 
its own head. The tragedies abound with this forgiving 
temper, this Christian spirit of pity, this teaching of broth- 
erly kindness and fervent charity, not trampling on a fellow- 
being, rejoicing in his sorrows because he deserved them, 
but restoring him in the spirit of meekness. ... 

The highest glory of Shakespeare's poetry is its spirituality. 
With all its quick sympathies with things of sight, it is full of 
the life by faith. Kindred at once to earth and heaven, it 
realizes what Wordsworth, with a noble image, grandly tells : — 

— Truth shows a glorious face 
While on that isthmus which commands 
The counsels of both worlds, she stands. 

There is many a trace to show how deep was Shake- 
speare's sense of the perishable nature of the things of time. 
How deeper still was his sense of eternity and its glories ! 

. . . It is worthy of reflection that whenever a holy 
subject is touched by Shakespeare it is with a deep sentiment 
of unaffected reverence. 

Professor Henry Reed, Lechires on the British Poets. 



THE MORAL IN SHAKESPEARE. 235 



Cf;e JHoral in ^fjakespeare, 

I HAVE said that it was doubtful if Shakespeare had any- 
conscious moral intention in his writings. I meant only 
that he was purely and primarily poet. And while he was an 
English poet, in a sense that was true of no other, his method 
was thoroughly Greek, yet with this remarkable difference, — 
that, while the Greek dramatists took purely national themes,, 
and gave them a universal interest by their mode of treat- 
ment, he took what may be called cosmopolitan traditions, 
legends of human nature, and nationalized them by the infu- 
sion of his perfectly Anglican breadth of character and solidity 
of understanding. Wonderful as his imagination and fancy 
are, his perspicacity and artistic discretion are more so. I'his 
country tradesman's son, coming up to London, could set 
high-bred wits, like Beaumont, uncopiable lessons in drawing 
gentlemen such as are seen nowhere else but on the canvas 
of Titian ; he could take Ulysses away from Homer and 
expand that shrewd and crafty islander into a statesman 
whose words are the pith of history. But what makes him 
yet more exceptional was his utterly unimpeachable judg- 
ment, and that poise of character which enabled him to be 
at once the greatest of poets and so unnoticeable a good 
citizen as to leave no incidents for biography. His material 
was never far-sought ; (it is still disputed whether the fullest 
head of which we have record were cultivated beyond the 
range of grammar-school precedent !) but he used it with a 



236 Shakespeare's morals. 

poetic instinct which we cannot parallel, identified himself 
with it, yet remained always its born and questionless mas- 
ter. He finds the clown and fool upon the stage, — he 
makes them the tools of his pleasantry, his satire and even 
his pathos ; he finds a fading rustic superstition, and shapes 
out of it ideal Pucks, Titanias, and Ariels, in whose existence 
statesmen and scholars believe for ever. Always poet, he 
subjects all to the ends of his art, and gives in Hamlet the 
church-yard ghost, but with the cothurnus on, — the mes- 
senger of God's revenge against murder ; always philosopher, 
he traces in Macbeth the metaphysics of apparitions, painting 
the shadowy Banquo only on the o'er-wrought brain of the 
murderer, and staining the hand of the wife-accomplice 
(because she was the more refined and higher nature) with 
the disgustful blood-spot that is not there. We say he had 
no moral intention, for the reason, that, as an artist, it was 
not his to deal with the realities, but only with the shows of 
things ; yet with a temperament so just, and insight so inevi- 
table as his, it was impossible that the moral reality, which 
so underlies the mirage of the poet's vision, should not 
always be suggested. 

Lowell, Among my Books, First Series, p. 226. 



Goethe's eulogy of Shakespeare. 237 



i^umanitp ^f)afee£ipeare'2! i^ero* 

THE scene of the action of Shakespeare's plays is the 
globe itself, — this is his unity of place ; eternity is 
the period of the action of his pieces, — this is his unity of 
time ; and in conformity with these two unities is the hero 
of his drama, who represents the central point, — the unity 
of interest. Humanity is his hero, a hero continually dying 
and continually being bom, continually loving, continually 
hating, yet loving more than hating. 
IVit, IVisdotn, and Pathos, from the prose of Heinrigh Heine, p. 63. 



<^0et{)e'£{ Culogp of ^ijalkespeare. 

/"^ OETHE expressed deep indebtedness to Shakespeare, 
^^ because, as he says, " he had widened his own ex- 
istence into an infinity." " I am ashamed of myself in 
Shakespeare's presence," he writes, ''for often it happens 
that at first sight I think that I should have done differently, 
but afterwards I have to acknowledge that I am a poor 
blunderer, that in Shakespeare Nature is uttering her own 
oracles, and that my men are soap-bubbles inflated by 
romantic capnces." 
Goethe and Schiller, by Professor Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, p. 15. 



238 Shakespeare's morals. 



^ftakespeare anti ti^e Mbit, 

To take Shakespeare for a type of the drama, what, we 
ask, is the distinguishing merit of this great writer ? It 
is fidehty to Nature. Is not the Bible also equally true to 
Nature? " It is the praise of Shakespeare," says Dr. John- 
son, " that his plays are the mirror of Hfe." Was there ever 
a more consummate mirror of life than the Bible affords ? 
" Shakespeare copied the manners of the world then passing 
before him, and has more allusions than other poets to the 
traditions and superstitions of the vulgar," The Bible, per- 
haps, excels all other books in this sort of description. 
" Shakespeare was an exact surveyor of the inanimate world." 
The Bible is full of similar sketches. An excellence of 
Shakespeare is the individuality of his characters. " They 
are real beings of flesh and blood," the critics tell us ; " they 
speak like men, not like authors." How truly this applies 
to the persons mentioned in sacred writ ! Goethe has com- 
pared the characters of Shakespeare to " watches with crys- 
talline cases and plates, which, while they point out with 
perfect accuracy the course of the hours and minutes, at the 
same time disclose the whole combination of springs and 
wheels whereby they are moved." A similar transparency 
of motive and purpose, of individual traits and spontaneous 
action, belongs to the Bible. From the hand of Shakespeare, 
" the lord and the tinker, the hero and the valet, come forth 
equally distinct and clear." In the Bible the various sorts 



SHAKESPEARE AND THE BIBLE. 239 

of men are never confounded, but have the advantage of 
being exhibited by Nature herseh", and are not a contrivance 
of the imagination. " Shylock," observes a recent critic, 
" seems so much a man of Nature's making, that we can 
scarce accord to Shakespeare the merit of creating him." 
What will you say of Balak, Nabal, Jeroboam ? " Macbeth 
is rather guilty of tempting the Weird Sisters than of being 
tempted by them, and is surprised and horrified at his own 
hell-begotten conception." Saul is guilty of tampering with 
the Witch of Endor, and is alarmed at the ghost of Samuel, 
whose words distinctly embody and vibrate the fears of his 
own heart, and he " falls straightway all along on the earth." 
" The exquisite refinement of Viola triumphs over her mascu- 
line attire." The exquisite refinement of Ruth triumphs in 

the midst of men. 

Sylvester Judd, in the ''Atlantic,'' August, 1859. 



ILifiit of Cjctracts from ^i)afee2ipeare. 



PAGE 



All's Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 76 125 

Act i. Sc. I, 1. 231 92 

Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 5 127 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 139 15 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 126 28 

Act V. Sc. 3, 1. 39 90 

Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 19 124 

Act ii. Sc. 5, 1. 50 :. 140 

Act iii. Sc. 13, 1. 31 24 

Act iii. Sc. 13, 1. 79 69 

Act iii. Sc. 13, 1. Ill . . . 24 

Act V. Sc^2jJ^86 . ^ 85 

As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. i 169 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 21 1-53 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 38 208 

Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 75 84 

Act ii. Sc. 7, 1. 136 206 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 297 74 

Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 28 46 

Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 109 46 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 136 159 

Act V. Sc. 4, 1. 114 ; . . . . 180 

Comedy of Errors, Act v. Sc. i, 1. 78 95 

Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 130 71 

Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 35 80 

Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 12 . 130 



242 



LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 



Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. 37 

Act V. Sc. I, 1. 47 
Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. i, 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 60 

Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 35 

Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 74 

Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 402 
Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 87 

Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 129 

Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 68 

Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 471 

Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 56 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 221 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 36 

Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 145 

Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 33 

Act iv. Sc. 7, 1. 119 

Act V. Sc. 2, 1. 8 

Act V. Sc. 2, 1. 230 
Henry IV., First Part, Act i. Sc. 

Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 453 

Act V. Sc. 2, 1. 82 
Henry IV., Second Part, Inducti 



Act 


ii. Sc. I, 


1.4 


Act 


ii. Sc. I, 


1.44 


Act 


ii. Sc. I, 


1-57 


Act 


ii. Sc. I, 


1.80 


Act 


V. Sc. I, 


1.70 


Act 


V. Sc. 5, 


1.65 


Henry V 


, Act i. 


3c. I, 1 


Act 


. Sc. 2, 1 


• 13 


Act 


. Sc. 2, 1 


. 180 


Act 


. Sc. 2, 1 


• 302 


Act 


V. Sc. I, 


1. 18 


Act 


V. Sc. I, 


1-31 


Act 


V. Sc. I, 


1. 156 



IS 



LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 



243 



Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 306 
Act iv. Sc. 8, 1. 48 . . 
Act iv. Sc. 8, 1. Ill . . 
Act V. prol. 1. 15 . . . 

Henry VI., First Part, Act ii. 
Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 109, 126 
Act V. Sc. I, 1. 26 
Act V. Sc. 4, 1. 39 

Henry VI., Second Part, Act 
Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 85 
Act ii. Sc 3, 1. 24 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 31 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 136 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 153 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1, 232 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 367 
Act iii. Sc. 3 . . 
Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 31 
Act iv. Sc. 4 . . 
Act iv. Sc. 7, 1. 121 
Act iv. Sc. 9, 1. 13 

Henry VI., Third Part, Act 
Act V. Sc. 2, 1. 5 
Act V. Sc, 4 
Act V. Sc. 5, 1. 7 
Act V. Sc. 6, 1. 1 1 

Henry VIIL, Act i. Sc. i, 1 
Act i. Sc. 1, 1. 140 
Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 71 . 
Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 55 
Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 124 
Act ii. Sc. 2, 1 27 
Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 18 
Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 75 
Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 98 
Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 125 



Sc 



Sc. 



29 



65 



41 



PAGE 

146 

21 

26 

26 

l6l 

114 

70 

II 

209 

146 

209 

109 

123 

14 
27 

183 
184 
123 

143 
146 

145 
166 
120 
208 
27 

93 
94 

140 

78 

103 

30 

60 

31 
31 
61 



244 



LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 



Act-iii. Sc. 2, 1. 351 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 422 
Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 17 
Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 83 
Act V. Sc. I, 1. 2 . 
Act V. Sc. 1, 1. 123 
Act V. Sc. 3, 1. 43 

John, King, Act ii. Sc. i, 1. 80 
Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 99 
Act ii. Sc. I, 423 . 
Act iii. Sc. I . . 
Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 279 
Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 290 
Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 22 
Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 107 
Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 112 
Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 119 
Act iv. Sc I . . 
Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 30 
Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 216 

Julius Caesar, Act i. Sc. 
Act i. Sc. 3, I. 34 
Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 62 
Act ii. Sc. I, I 255 
Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 123 
Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 19 
Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 218 
Act V. Sc. 3, 1. 63 

Lear, King, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 241 
Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. loi 
Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 68 
Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 23 
Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 38 
Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. II 
Act iv. Sc. 6, I. 168 
Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. 221 



LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 



245 



Act V. Sc. 2, 1. 9 . . 
Love's Labor's Lost, Act i 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 305 . 
Lucrece, 1. 131 . . . . 

1. 712 

1-855 

1. 869 

1. 1009 

1. mo 
Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 4, 1. 5 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1 96 . 

Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 145 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 84 . 

Act iv. Sc. 3. 1. 197 . 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 209 

Act v. Sc. I, 1. 56 . 

Act V. Sc. 3, 1. 22 . 

Act V. Sc. 5, 1. 19 . 
Measure for Measure, Act 

Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 126 . 

Act i. Sc 4, 1. 77 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 59 . 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 72 . 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 85 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 114 . 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 136 . 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 176 . 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 29 . 

Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 76 . 

Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. I 

Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 172 . 

Act iii. Sc. I, 1- 5 

Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 118 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 196 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 275 
Merchant of Venice, Act i. 



Sc. I, 1 



Sc. 



Sc. I 



152 



30 



PAGE 

179 

22 

96 

97 

21 

98 

105 

lOI 

176 

157 

III 

92 

99 
176 
176 
1 88 

165 
165 

83 
10 
92 
76 

13 
109 

180 

72 

31 

157 

74 

143 

30 

205 

182 

140 

114 

119 



246 LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 

PAGE 

Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 98 iig 

Act ii. Sc. 8, 1. 35 i^c 

Act ii. Sc. 9, 1. 38 ,g 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 73 128 

Act iii. Sc. ii. 1. 150 e8 

Act iii. Sc 2, 1. 246 1,5 

Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 181 yr 

Act V. Sc. I, 1. 54 210 

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 128 49 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 195 J, J 

Act V. Sc. I, 1. 2 5- 

Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 238 74 

Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 51 J25 

Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 85 125 

Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 36 128 

Act V. Sc. I 148 

Othello, Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 177 58 

Act ii. Sc 3, 1. 357 115 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 376 69 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 155 141 

Pericles, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 86 10 

Richard II., Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 4 10 

Act i. Sc. 3, I. 286 208 

Act ii. Sc. 1, 1. 5 217 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 31 35 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 270 194 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 6 118 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 141 167 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 178 118 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 77 19 

Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 168, 239 115 

Act V. Sc. 2 12 

Act V. Sc. I, 1. 66 103 

Act V. Sc. 5, 1. 38 173 

Richard III., Act i. Sc. 4, 1. I 186 

Act ii. Sc. I 209 



LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 



247 



Actii. Sc. I, 1. 12 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 87 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 41 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 28 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. I . 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 51 

Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 126 

Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 320 

Act V. Sc. I, 1. 20 
Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 15 

Act iv. Sc. 3 . , 

Act iv. Sc. 5, 1. 28 

Act iv. Sc. 5, 1. 62 

Act v. Sc. I, 1. 79 
Shrew, The Taming of the, Act iv. Sc, 

Act V. Sc. 2, 1. 136 
Sonnet, xii., Ix. . . . 

liv 

Ixxi., Ixxii., Ixxiii. 

Ixxvii 

ex 

cxxix 

cxlvi 

Tempest, The Epilogue, 1. 15 

Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 99 . 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 226 

Act iii. Sc. I, 1. 32 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 95 

Act iv. Sc. I, 1. 148 
Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 

Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 24 

Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 8 . 
' Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 17 

Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 33 

Act V. Sc. I, 1. 189 

Titus Andronicus, Act i. Sc. i, 1. 117 



71 



PAGE 
112 
177 

8i 
117 

189 

91 
176 
194 
142 

20 

147 
161 

178 

100 

29 

63 

160 
162 

215 

73 
213 
no 
154 
147 
24 
90 

50 
192 
202 
165 
198 
116 

22 
100 

77 



248 LIST OF EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE. 

PAGE 

Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. 3 174 

Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 78 87 

Act i. Sc. 3, 1. 240 127 

Act ii. Sc. 3, 1. 164 127 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 96 84 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 145 65 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 196 81 

Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 228 91 

Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 105 125 

Act V. Sc. 3, 1. 23 144 

Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 4, 1. 83 47 

Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 401 163 

Winter's Tale, Act i. Sc. 2, 1. 67 22 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 39 68 

Act ii. Sc. I, 1. 73 139 

Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. 41 40 

Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 29 45 

Act iv. Sc. 4, 1. 454 29 



Scriptural fliuotationjai* 



PAGE 

Genesis xlix. 6 loi 

Exodus xvii. 6 iS 

Numbers xxiv. s, 6 162 

Joshua vii. 21 102 

Job vi. IS 103 

Job xxxiv. 19 29 

Psalms xiv. 4 m 

Psalms xviii. 26 »i2 

Psalms xxx. s i93 

Psalms xxxvii. 23, 24 i93 

Psalms xliv. 3 26 

Psalms xlvi. i 69 

Psalms xlix. 12 164 

Psalms Ixxv. 6, 7 12 

Psalms cii. n 160 

Psalms cxix. 99 72 

Psalms cxix. 103 209 

Psalms cxxx. 3 14 

Proverbs i. 25 24 

Proverbs vi. 27 loi 

Proverbs x. ig 124 

Proverbs xi. 24 85 

Proverbs xii. 19 27 

Proverbs xiv. 29 93 

Proverbs xv. i 124 

Proverbs xv. 19 91 

Proverbs xvi. 23 10 

Proverbs xix. 14 57 

Proverbs xxi. 15 86 

Proverbs xxiii. 23 155 

Proverbs xxv. 27 127 



PAGE 

Proverbs xxvii. 2 127 

Proverbs xxviii. 15 31 

Proverbs xxx. 25 82 

Proverbs xxxi. 12 60 

Proverbs xxxiii. 32 iii 

Ecclesiastes v. 10 99 

Ecclesiasticus xiii. i 102 

Matthew iv. 7 75 

Matthew v. 45 29 

Matthew vi. 14, 15 79 

Matthew vi. 26 209 

Matthew vi. 34 117 

Matthew vii. i 23 

Matthew vii. 5 73 

Matthew vii. 12 85 

Matthew x. 29 9 

Matthew xix. 5 58 

Matthew xxvi. 49 115 

Matthew xxvii. 25 76 

Markvi. 31 95 

Mark vii. 21 21 

John iii. 16 13 

John xi 25 20S 

John xii. 24 169 

John XV. 13 138 

Romans i. 18 86 

Romans iii. 23 13 

Romans ix. 15 10 

Romans xiii. i 86 

I Corinthians i. 27 15 

I Corinthians vi. 19 83 



250 



SCRIPTURAL QUOTATIONS. 













PAGE 










PAGE 


I Corinthians ix. 27 154 


Ephesians v. 22 ...... 59 


I Corinthians xi. 3 










64 


Ephesians vi. 1 1 ... 




106 


I Corinthians xi. 11 










54 


Philippians iii. 13 ... 






66 


I Corinthians xv. 19 










203 


Philippians iv. 11 . . 






70 


I Corinthians xv. 26 










155 


I Timothy vi. 9 . 








99 


2 Corinthians iv. 3 










24 


Hebrews iii 14 . 








66 


2 Corinthians vi. 10 










173 


Hebrews x. 38 . 








76 


2 Corinthians vii. 10 










157 


James i. 4 . . 








69 


2 Corinthians xi. 14 










"5 


James i. 15 . . 








no 


2 Corinthians xii. 10 










173 


James i. 19 . . 








12s 


Galatians v. 17 










21 


James i. 22 . . 








37 


Ephesians iv. 24 










• 14 


2 Peter iii. 1 1 








. 202 



SlnDejc of ^ttbjectjs. 



PAGE 

Actions dignify place ". 28 

Actions, good, their glory to be attributed to God 20 

Actions, huRian, observed by powers divine 45 

Adam, the "oflfending" leg 

Addison, Joseph 217 

Adversity, its sweet uses 170 

Agamemnon's address 174 

Aged miser, the 98 

Age, its marks 161 

Age, the prerogative of 88 

Ages, the seven 206 

Alms for oblivion 65 

Ambition, the sin of the angels 38 

Angels, Katharine's vision of 199 

Angel-visits, few and far between 204 

Appearances deceitful 128 

Appearances deceptive 28 

Argument versus impulse 230 

Aristotle I95 

Arithmetic and inclination 105 

Art at its fullest 67 

Associations, low, debase loi 

Assurance, Christian 200 

Bacon, vSir Francis 9, 30, 35, 46, 76, 83, 90, 93, 174, 180 

Battle, few die well in 33 



252 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

PAGE 

Beaufort, Cardinal, his death 183 

Beauty dies 160 

Beauty ornamented by truth 162 

Bees, the order in their kingdom 87 

Bequests 83 

Bible, the, and Shakespeare 238 

Bible, the, infinite in meaning x 

Blood for a passionate speech 198 

Blood, the smell of 18S 

Bluntness, saucy 113 

Bodily sins and mental ones 105 

Bolingbroke's triumph 11 

Bosom lines in Shakespeare x 

Bounty profitable . . 85 

Browning, Elizabeth B 67, 169 

Bryant, William C 142 

Bullen, Queen Anne, her message to King Henry VIII. . . . 174 

Bushnell, Horace 16 

"But yet" 140 

Byron, Lord 213 

Cesar's fall 166 

Campbell, Thomas 204 

Care detracts from prosperity 117 

Care, too much, a loss 121 

Carlyle, Thomas x, 128, 154, 219 

Cato's daughter 57 

Ceremony, the most becoming 76 

Chances mock 205 

Change, times of 81 

Charity by bequest 83 

Chaucer, Geoffrey 25, 55, 63, 78, 97 

Cherubins, the young-eyed 210 

Child, mourning for the loss of a 178 

Childhood, the innocence of 22 

Chillingworth, William 198 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 253 

PAGE 

Christ in literature 67 

Christ's redemption 17 

Christ the key to the history of the world 13 

Churchmen should be pitiful 114 

Cicero H2 

Clarence's dream 186 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor x, 37, 158 

Comfort in despair 209 

Commerce dependent on order 88 

Common-place book, the use of a, suggested 73 

Communicating to others 84 

Company, low, a misfortune 10 1 

Concealment, like a worm i' the bud 48 

Connoisseur, the loi 

Conscience 27 

Conscience, a guilty 192 

Conscience, the peace of a quiet 172 

Consideration like an angel came 158 

Cordelia's patient sorrow 70 

Counsel unwelcome 148 

Courage does not despair 195 

Craft in persons pretending to plainness 113 

Crow and the lark compared 212 

Crow, the, and the swan loi 

Cure, a, worse than the disease 195 

Death, a becoming 157 

Death and sleep 205 

Death dared by the avaricious 97 

Death destroyed 155 

Death hopefully expected 209 

Death, humility in view of 215 

Death invoked 152 

Death, its terrors 181 

Death makes odds even 206 

Death to be prepared for 34 



254 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



PACK 



Death, the bed of i8x 

Death the life of the soul 193 

Death, the sleep of 196 

Debate, loud, deprecated 124 

Deceit unfit for noble souls 113 

Deed, a good in a naughty world 2U 

Deed, a, too vile to name 103 

Deeds, good, their own reward 71 

Deeds, noble .... 65 

Deeds, not words 37 

Deeds the proper praise 127 

Delay leads beggary 91 

Deservings made foul 127 

Despair relieved by prayer 147 

Detraction 126 

Devil's fair suggestions, the 115 

Devil, the, citing Scripture 112 

Devil, the, his cleverness 37 

Discord, a picture of 88 

Dispatch a rich thing 90 

Dispatch to be measured by progress 93 

Divinity that shapes our ends, a 10 

Doubts traitors 92 

Dreams in the sleep of death 196 

Dream, the, of Clarence i86 

Duelling 198 

Duty, a call for its championship 37 

Duty unperformed dangerous 91 

Dying men, their words 217 

Ebbing men 90 

Eliot, George 83, 105, 124 

Emulation 65 

Enemy to be loved 78 

England eulogized 35 

Err, to, common 156 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 255 

PAGE 

Evils greatest as they are about to leave 193 

Evil readily learned 80 

Expectation, its failure 15 

Extasies easier than virtuous deeds 108 

Eye, the, its use 46 

Fair-spoken persons 139 

Faith and law 9 

Faith expands the intellect 158 

Faraday, Michael no 

Fate, the book of 204 

Faults made worse by excuse 157 

Fear oppresseth strength 118 

Ferryman, the grim 187 

Folly, sister of wickedness 24 

Forethought, the, of the wise 69 

Fortune's moods 165 

Fortune's threatening 194 

Friends, bad loi 

Friends, false 103 

Friends, inconstant 130 

Friends recognized in heaven . . .' 152 

Friends, the choice of 103 

Friendship, a generous 135 

Gain not a cure-all 98 

Gervinus on Shakespeare's morals 226 

Gilt o'er-dusted 66 

Giving, that profits 85 

Glory departed 167 

God displeased with unthankfulness I77 

God, his unity 25 

God, obligation to 16 

God shall be my hope 209 

God, trust in 81 

God's hand in the affairs of men 12 



256 INDEX OF SUBJECTS, 

PAGE 

God's laws eternal 86 

God's ways not ours . . 15 

Gold foolishly sought 99 

Gold, its influence 100 

Gold, poison loo 

Goethe on Shakespeare 237 

Good, hardly gained 80 

Government based on order 86 

Grace and rude will 21 

Grace overcoming natural tendencies 22 

Graves, let 's talk of 167 

Grey hairs the pursuivants of death 161 

Grief divided 135 

Grief's shadows 118 

Grief softens the mind 178 

Grief, when indecent 177 

Guardian, The 113 

Guesses at Truth x, 20, 46, 69, 72, 105, 139 

Guilt defeating prayer 144 

Guilty, the, suspicious 27 

Hair false 129 

Hallam, Henry 224 

Harmony in immortal souls 210 

Haste makes waste 93 

Hate and fear 103 

Heart, a man's . 83 

Heaven, friends recognized in . . 152 

Heaven, mirth in 180 

Heber, Reginald 208 

Heine, Heinrich, on Shakespeare's Idea 237 

Henry the Fourth's reflections on sleep 191 

History of man, its true secret in his spiritual life 154 

Holidays needed 95 

Hollow men make gallant show 115 

Honor found in a narrow way 65 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 257 

PAGE 

Honor given for wealth 98 

Honors corruptly obtained 39 

Hope 204 

Hope, earthly and heavenly contrasted 208 

Hospitality, deeds of neglected 85 

Hudson, H. N., on Shakespeare's morals 230 

Hypocrites, their pretence of doing their duty to God .... 75 

Idolatry 25 

111 words 125 

Inclination 105 

Inclinations to be resisted until they are known to be right . . no 

Injuries forgiven 78 

Inside, summat wrong in 124 

Intellect perverted 128 

Irving, Washington 55 

Irresolution 197 

Jaques moralizes 133 

Jew's bond, the 135 

Judas crying, " All hail " 115 

Judd, Sylvester, on Shakespeare and the Bible 238 

Judge, an uncorruptible 31 

Judge not 123, 185 

Judgment, the day of 202 

Judgment to be reserved 125 

Judgment warped by inclination 24 

Justice 76 

Kings, their sad estate 168 

Law courtesying to power 30 

Laws like cobwebs 30 

Leisure purposeless go 

Lessing loS 

Leasing, quoted by Lowell 72 



258 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

PAGE 

Lie, one's own credited 24 

Life limited • . . 195 

Life misspent 213 

Life perfected in death 169 

Life tedious 164 

Life, the end of an evil 184 

Life, the happiest 203 

Life too short to waste loS 

Life transitory 160 

Little, the blessedness of being 173 

Lives, history in 81 

Longfellow, H. W 186 

Loss from too much care 121 

Love at sight 46 

Love ceremonious 115 

Love confessed 51 

Love desired by a wife 64 

Love disguised 47 

Love, dwelling in 55 

Love, the course of true 49 

Lovers and poets 67 

Lowell, Professor James Russell on Shakespeare's morals . . 235 

Luckless companions deserted ....116 

Lust in action no 

Macbeth, lady, her remorse 188 

Man, his love true 48 

Man in authority, his tricks "..... 180 

Man not to be reckoned happy until death 183 

Man, the fear of, a snare 32 

Man, the state of 86, 170 

Man's chief good 108 

Martyr, Justin 25 

Matrimony, its bliss 55 

Melancholy, kinsman to despair 95 

Men responsible for their acts 34 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 259 

PAGE 

Mercy to man begotten by a contemplation of Christ .... 14 

Milton, John 95 

Milton's Comus, 1. 381 : 191 

Mind, the, makes the body rich 29 

Mind, the paramount value of 162 

Mirthe in heaven ........ 180 

Miser, the, more industrious than the samt 97 

Mistrust leading to defeat 117 

Moods dependent upon meals 81 

Moon, the, its changes 130 

Morality necessary to intellect 222 

Much wants more .... 98 

Miiller, John von, quoted 13 

Murder forbidden 18 

Murderer, a well-tempered 198 

Music, its power 211 

Name, a good H^ 

Nature, one touch of 66 

Nature's lending 83 

Neglect of order ... 87 

Nobility's badge 77 

Obedience in a wife 60 

Occasion begets courage 9° 

Occasion directing 82 

Offence's gilded hand • • I44 

Opportunity ... .... 106 

Opportunity, its danger 102 

Orpheus drew trees 211 

Outcasts, sympathy for §5 

Outside shows deceptive 114 

Overrunning, loss by 94 

Pain purifies . . -173 

Palestine referred to ; 14 



26o INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

PAGE 

Pastors, ungracious 115 

Past, the, showing the future 81 

Patience necessary 69 

Peabody, Andrew Preston 9 

Peabody, Ephraim 204 

Pharisees, their hypocrisy 113 

Philosophers, their absurdities 112 

Philosophy, a little, inclines one to atheism 9 

Phrases, fine, vanish under God's scourge 148 

Pilate's outward pity 115 

Pilate's washing of his hands 18 

Pitch defiles 102 

Plain and true 125 

Platen, Count von . 186 

Plodding q6 

Plumptre, E. H x 

Poison and medicine 20 

Pope, Alexander 200 

Pope's Iliad 135 

Poverty no disgrace 28 

Praise of enemies 127 

Prayer, feigned, answered 142 

Prayer, its simplicity 145 

Prayer of Henry V 146 

Prayers follow misfortune's steps 142 

Preaching morals by precept 226 

Princes cause good or evil 35 

Princes' favors lyi 

Pruning good for a vine .... 169 

Purpose, a flighty 92 

QuARLES, Francis loc 

Quotable lines in Shakespeare x 

Reason necessary 93 

Recreation necessary gc 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 26 1 

PAGE 

Reed, Professor Henry, on Shakespeare's morals 234 

Regrets before death Ill 

Religion, errors in, blessed 128 

Religion, pure, what it is 75 

Remorse would make a hell of heaven 213 

Repentance . 144 

Repentance a duty 215 

Resolution sicklied o'er 197 

Riches, the use of 83 

Richter, Jean Paul 210 

Right, the, championed 17 

Righteous, the, upheld by heavenly grace 25 

Ripeness is all 179 

Rulers responsible for war 32 

Rumor is a pipe 140 

Rural life, its charms 170 

Sadness making a want-wit 119 

Sad souls in merry company 176 

Sailor's sleep 192 

Satan's snares 105 

Schlegel on the death-scene of Beaufort 185 

School-days' friendship 131 

Season seasons things 212 

Self-confidence deprecated 123 

Self-deception 108 

Self-endearment 125 

Self-love 38 

Self slaughter, God's canon against 195 

Self-worship the most faithfully observed of all ritual .... 108 

Self, to be trusted 92 

Sense, the, of man darkens divine things 180 

Servants and masters 33 

Shakespeare calculated to make his readers better x 

Shakespeare, his penetration and knowledge x 

Shakespeare's faculty 219 



262 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

PAGE 

Shakespeare's genius, the greatness of 224 

Shakespeare's name the greatest in all literature 224 

Shakespeare's reverence 233 

Shakespeare's unconsciousness 223 

Shakespeare's will, extract from 218 

Shakespeare a prophet 222 

Shakespeare not a sceptic 223 

Shame a safeguard 103 

Shows, outward, deceitful 128 

Shrew, the, converted 63 

Silence 124 

Silver unsatisfying 99 

Sin, cunning 128 

Sin ne'er gives a fee 107 

Sin not to be washed away with water 115 

Sin plated with gold 31 

Sin repented of 1 56 

Sins bodily and mental contrasted 105 

Sin the source of sorrow and shame 157 

Slander 139 

Sleep, Nature's soft nurse 191 

Sleeplessness from remorse 186 

Smith, Henry B • 13 

Sophocles, Aias 1S6 

Antigone 32, 35. 46, 86, 93, 123, 156 

Fragments 15, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 53, 63, 65, 69, 72, 90, loi, 113, 

117, 124, 127, 130, 145, 148, 160, 162, 193, 195, 198 

CEdipus at Colonos I3> 37. 164, 176, 177, 203 

CEdipus the king 166, 183 

Philoctetes 208 

Sophocles, his recognition of the justice of heaven x 

Sophocles superior to Homer x 

Sorrow anticipated 118 

Sorrow, godly 157 

Sorrow, inordinate 178 

Sorrow needs words 176 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 263 

PAGE 

Sorrows of life, the 203 

Soul, the interior beauties of 154 

Soul, man has a IC4 

Southey, R 181 

SparrSw, the, cared for by God 209 

Spectator, The 97, 135 

Spenser, Edmund 25, 156, 195 

Spenser, Edmund, Sonnet 162 

Spirits finely touched 83 

Spiritual life rules man's outward life 154 

Suggestions, loose, to be guarded against 73 

Suicide cowardice 195 

Sun, the, shines on all alike 29 

Sweets turned to sours 99 

Talkative men vexatious 124 

Tattler, The 233 

Taylor, Jeremy 55, 145, 169, 177, 193, 202, 215 

Taylor, Thomas House 20 

Tears transformed 194 

Temptation 102 

Tennyson, Alfred 40, 53 

Thieves protected 31 

Thoughts foul, their influence 191 

Thunder waking the conscience 192 

Tide in the affairs of men 91 

Time, its effects upon man's beauty 161 

Time, the flight of 164 

Time the measure of business 90 

Time's noiseless foot 90 

Timeliness to.be observed .• • • So 

To be or not to be 196 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow 165 

Toothache, no philosopher patient under the 149 

Trouble incited 117 

Trouble not lessened by lamentation 121 



264 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

FAGB 

Trust in God 81 

Truth and love, their strength 40 

Truth consistently advocated 37 

Truth, the power of 27 

Truth, the value of the endeavor after 72 

Tully on friendship I35 

Ulrict, on Shakespeare's morals 231 

Unity, the, of God 25 

Valor misbegot 198 

Vengeance, God's 10, 18 

Vice assuming a mark of virtue 128 

Vice blinding in its nature 24 

Victory from God 25 

Villany natural 22 

Villemain, Abel Fran5ois x 

Violence not lasting 35 

Virtue crowned by joy 10 

Virtue's beauty 163 

Virtue perverted 20 

Virtues shining out 84 

War, responsibility for 32 

Warwick's ^eath 166 

Weakness from a neglect of order 89 

Webster, Daniel, his sense of responsibility to God 16 

Weeds among flowers I05 

Weeds, the danger of neglecting 109 

White, R. G., on Shakespeare's morals 231 

Wife a bad, a great evil 63 

Wife, a good 30 

Wife, a good, a comfort to her husband 55 

Wife, a, pleading with her husband 56 

Wife, a true 60 

Will, the, of man, overruled by God 10 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 265 

PAGE 

Wisdom against fortune 69 

Wolsey's death 172 

Wolsey's fall 38 

Woman, a fair 53 

Woman, a perfect 50 

Woman, her duty to her husband 58 

Woman, her self-renunciation 59 

Woman roused to action by adversity 55 

Woman's nature noble 53 

Words and thoughts 144 

Words ease the sad heart 176 

Words, many, irksome 124 

Wordsworth, William 67 

World, the, a stage 2c6 

World, the kingdom of 69 

Worldlings, making testament 134 

Wotton, William 113 

Wrongs worn like raiment, carelessly 199 

Zeal, too much . 93 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



^^^ 








' ■%,# 



^<t- % 







■•\.^^ 








!'.% 



:-Q. ^ o » 1. 



'-^^ -^'^^-^^-'^X.# .^^.^^.^■ ^-^^ 



\> „ ^ • o , 



tS ^^ 



'<>. ,<^"*' 




« ^ -% V ^ ^ ° « ^ % V ^ ^ * ^ % \> ^ ^ * ^ 



%^<^ 




%..^^ 



'^^^^ ' £MWAl '^ 'S^'' -^^^/0iZ ^<<^ 



''^-. > 



t*^ ^^ 



c-b ^^ 






's^\# 









-^ '/ 





^^0^ 







^^"^ 








.- .^^' -^ % 











■^Arfi 









V-'* V^^-o^^.'-^^^^.- 














,^^ ^^ %.^ 



h'^ '^ A^ -^-^ 




